One Tiny Piece of Metal
by Serrafina
Summary: COMPLETE: How Seeing Red would've gone if I'd been in charge. What if Xander wasn't standing in the backyard? Would Tara still have been standing in front of the window when Warren came? Read and find out.
1. The Shooting

One Tiny Piece of Metal

Disclaimer: I don't own them, but I do own the story, so don't steal it. Except a few lines I stole from Joss.

Chapter 1: The Shooting

Willow was reluctant to get out of the bed in the morning, but it had to be done. The sun was shining brightly through the window. There was no denying it. Morning had come, and was already on its way out. She glanced at the clock beside her bed. 10:58. Sighing, she rolled over to face the blond beauty beside her.

"Tara, baby?" she began.

"Mm-hmm?" her lover murmured in reply, sleepily opening her eyes.

"I'm off to the bathroom. Be back in a sec."

Tara giggled and grabbed Willow's arm as the redhead slid out of bed. Smiling at the contact, Willow turned back to her lover. Tara just looked up at her expectantly. Giggling, Willow leaned in for a kiss. Several seconds later, she pulled away, glancing meaningfully at the door. Tara, now fully awake, just smiled wickedly. The bed, with its satin sheets and, best of all, her lover, was very alluring, but Willow knew she had to be strong.

When Willow returned from her excursion to the bathroom, Tara was up and dressing. She had brought over a box of clothes the night before. As soon as the nerd Trio was taken care of, they were going to head over to Tara's dorm and retrieve the rest of her stuff. Just the thought of her wonderful Tara moving in with her made her feel so...so...ecstatic? Somehow she didn't think 'ecstatic' did the feeling inside her justice. Complete, perhaps? Or peaceful. Both, she decided. All of it. Everything good rolled up into one perfect feeling. Tara was moving in with her.

As all of this was running through her mind, she absent-mindedly dug through her dresser. She settled on jeans and a white blouse. As she pulled the blouse over her head, she rejoiced in the knowledge that Tara was sitting not five feet away from her, on the edge of the bed. Then it occurred to her why she had chosen this particular shirt. She had been with Tara when she had bought it nearly a year ago. Her task completed, she quickly ran a brush through her red hair. She could hear the soothing sound of Tara pulling a brush through her dirty blond hair in the background. She frowned slightly.

"What are you thinking about?" Tara said softly.

Willow turned to face her girlfriend. "I was thinking about the phrase 'dirty blond.' You're not dirty," she said as she sat down on the bed, her knees touching Tara's. She slipped her right arm around the other woman's waist.

"Well," Tara said as her hand slid up Willow's thigh, "at the moment, I'm feeling rather dirty..." Willow cut her off with a deep kiss.

When they pulled away, Willow was smiling almost shyly. "I wasn't talking about dirty thoughts..."

"I was," Tara replied.

---

Sunlight was shining in Xander's eyes. He groaned and rolled over. As he began to drift away again, the neighbors started yelling.

"Ugh," he moaned as he pressed a pillow over his head. "Can't you keep your domestic disputes to yourself?"

When the shouting, only slightly muted by the walls, did not cease, Xander gave up. He reluctantly removed the pillow, and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. He felt pretty much like crap. His face hurt, and he knew now that he'd drunk too much last night. But the thought of Spike doing...what he'd done, or tried to do, to Buffy, not to mention the physical pain, had been too much on top of everything else that had gone wrong since the not-wedding. Now, the hangover was almost too much.

Groaning, he lifted himself out of the bed and stumbled to the kitchen. He promptly poured and downed a glass of cold water, and fetched an ice pack from the freezer. Pressing it to his face, he put some popcorn in the microwave. To hell with a healthy breakfast. While the popcorn popped, he made his way to the bathroom. He washed his face, and looked up in the mirror. He sure as hell looked a lot better today than he had yesterday. Sighing, he turned around. His gaze caught the shower curtains.

He remembered seeing Spike's coat on the banister. His already dark mood had turned even darker as he stomped up the stairs and into the bathroom. Only to find Buffy sitting against the bathtub, tears streaming down her face and a large bruise rising on her inner thigh. The shower curtain was torn from its hangers, and hung limply behind her.

Blinking at his own shower curtains, Xander suddenly felt the need to sit down. God, he thought as he walked to the couch, poor Buffy. Understatement of the year. As he sat down, he thought about everything she had had to deal with this year. Comes back from the grave, from heaven nonetheless, finds out she's dirt poor, has to get a job in a fast food place, and the only person she can talk to is evil and undead. And then he had to come along and freak when he found out that she'd been boinking Spike behind all their backs. Okay, well, he was still freaked by that, but it was hard to stay mad at her after seeing her sobbing on her bathroom floor.

I've really screwed things up this year, he said to himself.

The smell of burning popcorn brought him out of his reverie.

"Crap," he muttered as he rushed to turn off the microwave. "Ouch," he hissed as he picked up the hot paper bag. "Shit," he cursed as he stubbed his toe.

Xander fanned at the air to disperse the smoke and the burnt smell, all the while hopping on one foot. It was official. This was not his day. He admitted defeat. The room smelled terrible. He had to get out of here. A small grin crept across his face as he thought about how he owed Buffy an apology...

---

"Hey. Clothes," Willow said, looking at the mirror as she finished buttoning up the blouse. Jeans. Check. Shirt. Check. She was officially ready for the outside world.

"Better not get used to them," Tara said, turning to address her girlfriend. She too was dressed again, wearing a turquoise shirt and jeans.

"Mmm, yes ma'am," Willow said, giggling as she snuggled up with her girlfriend. Their lips pressed together in a gentle kiss. They pulled away from the kiss only to hug each other, relishing the feeling of being in each other's arms again, even if there were clothes between them.

"Think maybe we should have breakfast?" Willow said, scrunching up her face at the thought of leaving the bedroom.

"At noon," Tara said, reading the clock. "Little late for pancakes, don't you think?"

"Lunch then," Willow said, snagging a quick kiss as the two walked out the door, arms intertwined.

---

Nothing yet, Buffy thought idly as she wandered through the yard. She prodded the plants in search of Evil Trio cameras. Evil Uno now. Jonathon and what's-his-face got clinked, but they had never been very important. Just a bit of a nuisance. Jonathon's little show had certainly been entertaining. Crush his orbs? Of course that hadn't sounded dirty, oh no. She snorted with slight amusement, but she didn't really feel amused. Warren was still out there, so she would keep on looking.

Finding no hidden cameras, she threw her stick down with frustration. She was glad there were no cameras, really she was. But she wanted to find him. Setting her hands on her hips, she turned back to the house. Then she heard the footsteps, and saw the flash of dark hair as she spun around.

"Xan–" she began.

The bullet thudded into her chest before she could finish. He was saying something, but she couldn't hear. He was moving, but she couldn't see. She was falling. She couldn't feel the ground beneath her, or the pool of blood blossoming around her. All she could feel was the pain.


	2. Strong Like An Amazon

Chapter 2: Strong Like An Amazon

Willow and Tara had been standing in the kitchen making sandwiches when they heard the gunshots. Willow jumped and dropped the jelly. The jar shattered upon impact. Tara rushed to the window in time to see Warren shouting and running off, and Buffy crumpling to the ground.

"Oh my god," Tara breathed. Then she grabbed the phone off the wall and dialed 911 as Willow ran out the door.

"Oh god oh god oh god," the redhead was crying as she reached the still form of her best friend. "Buffy, oh god, Buffy," she sobbed as she knelt by her side and pressed the dishcloth she had been using to open the jar of jelly to the Slayer's chest.

The blood seeped through it and didn't stop. Buffy's torso was already soaked in it. Willow's knees were touching a pool of blood that was growing with frightening speed. But bleeding was good, her brain told her. Bleeding meant a pulse. Buffy's eyes were open but unseeing. Her mouth was parted slightly, and Willow could hear her struggling for breath. Then she felt comforting arms around her.

"The ambulance is on its way," Tara told her.

Willow's vision blurred but she couldn't look away from her friend. She could feel Tara's arms stroking her back and arms. Tara pressed her cheek against the top of Willow's head as they both cried. Willow took Buffy's limp hand in her own. The pulse was weak, but it was there. Willow was still sitting there, holding her friend's hand, tears cascading down her cheeks, when Tara led the paramedics to Buffy's prone form. A man quietly asked her to step away, but she couldn't move. Tara wrapped her in a warm embrace, and gently led her away.

"Someone has to tell Dawnie. And Xander," the witch said softly.

Willow turned her tear-streaked face to Tara. She opened her mouth to say something, but only a strangled sob came out. Tara bit her lip and pressed her forehead to Willow's, their tears mingling.

"Shhh, shhh," she whispered, although her own voice was breaking. She had to be strong for Willow. Like an Amazon. "You should g-go. Be with h-her. I'll tell them."

Willow found her voice long enough to whisper, "Thank you." The two turned back to where the men were rushing the stretcher bearing Buffy to the ambulance waiting in front of the house. The lovers hurried after them. They were standing there watching the men load the stretcher into the vehicle when Xander's car pulled up. He got out and ran towards them.

"What happened?" he said. "What's going on?"

"W-warren," Tara stammered. "He had a gun."

"God," Xander said, stunned. "Are you guys okay?"

Tara looked at Willow, who was staring at the ambulance and the paramedics attending Buffy. "We were in the k-kitchen," Tara told Xander. "We heard the gunshots," she added in a near whisper.

Xander opens his mouth, unsure of what to say or do. A paramedic calls out to them before he gets the chance to do anything.

"We have to go. Are you coming?"

Willow looks back at Tara, who squeezes her hand once, then drops it. Willow jumps into the back of the vehicle. Tara and Xander are left standing there, watching it drive away down the street.

Finally, Xander broke the tense silence. "It's bad, isn't it?"

"Yes." Tara looked down. She was having trouble finding the words. "Chest," she managed. She heard his sharp intake of breath.

"My car. We should get to the hospital," was all he said.

Tara looked up at him. She could see the tears forming in his eyes. He was trying to be strong, to hold it in. Nervously, she took his hand in hers, trying to comfort him. She wanted to say it was going to be okay, but she couldn't. He wouldn't believe her anyway.

"We should get Dawn from school," she said instead.

"Yeah," he whispered. Letting go of her hand, he walked to his car and climbed into the driver's seat. She slid into the seat next to him. Neither of them said anything on the drive. Not even when he speeded, or when he ran a red light. Tara wanted to say that this was dangerous, but there weren't many cars, so she held her tongue. She wasn't sure she could find the words anyway.

---

"That son of a bitch," Janice said to Dawn, as they did the whole "best friends, share my pain" thing before the bell rang for fifth period.

"I know," Dawn said as she put her backpack down beside her desk. "Nick is such a jackass."

"The guy could've at least apologized for running us over in the hall!" Janice raged on.

Dawn nodded sympathetically, but her heart wasn't really in it. Sure the jock had been rude to them, but she was having difficulty staying angry. Never mind that some things were still really screwed up at home. Xander and Anya were a mess. Buffy and Xander were fighting over the whole Spike thing, which was weird and messy by itself. None of that could darken her mood. Willow and Tara were back together. All she could think about was how happy they were. When Tara had walked into the hall with only a sheet, she'd been so happy...well, she couldn't think of a way to describe how happy she'd been. She almost giggled out loud as she thought of the couple giggling and holding hands while they researched between make-out sessions.

"You know what I mean?" Janice said, still angry.

"Totally," Dawn agreed.

The bell rang, and they took their seats. Still distracted, Dawn sort of wrote down her homework, sort of paid attention, and sort of took notes. The hottest guy in the school, Jake Thornton, sat in front and to the right of her. She had a perfect view of his profile. She was shocked out of her daydreaming when he suddenly rose from his seat. Dawn sighed as he asked the teacher for a pass to the bathroom. Janice looked at her and laughed. Dawn glared at her friend in mock anger, and then started tapping her pencil frenetically against her desk, bored without her crush in view. She was idly doodling in her binder when the teacher called her name. She snapped to attention, frantically trying to figure out what she had been asked to do.

"Yes?" she said, looking to Janice in desperation. Her friend only gave her a strange look and jerked her head at the front of the classroom. The teacher was holding out a piece of paper to her.

"Your...guardian is in the main office. Take your belongings with you," Ms. Lerone said, reading from the slip of paper.

Dawn quietly gathered her things, exchanging a "what the hell?" look with Janice before taking the paper from her teacher and walking out the door. She walked down the nearly empty hallway. A few teachers and janitors passed by, none even glancing at her. Three girls came out of the girls' bathroom as she walked by. Kirsty, Dawn thought. Great.

"Hi Dawn," the blond girl said softly while the other girls whom Dawn thought of as "Kirsty's minions" giggled in the background. "Where are you going?" Kirsty asked in that faux nice voice.

"Bathroom," Dawn lied, quickly ducking into said room.

She went into a stall and closed the door just in case the girls were listening in. She stood in there for about 30 seconds, then walked out, pausing only to check her reflection in the mirrors. As she turned left out of the bathroom and continued down the hall, she passed Jake leaving the boys' bathroom. He smiled at her. Her insides turned to jelly and she smiled nervously back, then continued on her way. Once he was behind her, she turned around, walking backwards so she could get the best view of the back of his head. He rounded the corner and she turned back around, giving a little shriek as she narrowly avoided a collision with a teacher.

"Watch where you're going, dear," the old lady said, not unkindly.

Dawn's face burned with embarrassment. "Sorry," she muttered, then almost ran to the main office.

She hadn't known what to expect there. She thought perhaps there was some new featured creature, or even something of the apocalyptic variety. But she certainly hadn't expected Xander and Tara, their faces ashen and tear-streaked, standing awkwardly against the wall of the office. Dawn flashed back to the last year, when Buffy had come to her classroom to tell her of their mother's death. She had collapsed in the hall while the entire class looked on. One look at Xander and Tara's faces was all she needed to know that whatever they had to say, whether it be about apocalypses or some horrible disaster, would be better said outside. They seemed to agree, for as soon as they saw her, they walked out to the parking lot with her between them. As soon as they were outdoors, Dawn stopped walking and turned to them.

"What's going on?" she asked, trying to keep calm.

Xander and Tara glanced at each other. Please let it be just an apocalypse, and not the end of the world, Dawn thought. She realized that she sounded ridiculous, but they had faced lots of apocalypses and come through relatively unscathed. Her mother's death, however...that had been the world of her world as she'd known it.

"There's been an...an accident," Tara began quietly. "Well, n-not an accident, really."

Dawn felt the tears welling up. She suddenly began to wonder why they had come, and not Buffy. Or Willow. "Buffy?" she whispered. "Willow?"

"The hospital," Xander said. "That's where they are and that's where we're going."

Dawn stared at the two adults. "What happened? Are they okay? Are they—" she stopped as tears began to spill down her cheeks. Tara looked like she was going to cry as well.

"Willow's f-fine," Tara began. "She went with B-buffy." The witch took a deep breath before continuing. "Warren came to the house. The backyard. Buffy was th-there. He shot her...in the chest."

Dawn could feel her heart thumping in her own chest as her mouth began to form her next question. "Is she...going to be okay?"

"We don't know, sweetie," Tara whispered sadly.

Dawn's face crumpled as she felt the familiar end-of-the-world feeling. She squeezed her eyes shut as the hot tears poured down her cheeks and a sob rose in her throat. Then she felt strong arms encircling her, and Tara's voice trying to be soothing.

"We should go," Xander said.


	3. At the Hospital

Chapter 3: At the Hospital

"Name, please?" the receptionist's clear, crisp voice rang out.

Xander stared at her for a few seconds, seeming to not comprehend the question. "Buffy," he gasped out. It didn't seem to have occurred to him before the woman might need a little more than that. The nurse cleared her throat, but it still took him a few seconds to get the hint. "Summers," he said finally. "Buffy Summers."

Tara looked at him sympathetically as the receptionist, whose name tag said "Jennifer", fiddled with the computer. Tara knew he was trying to be brave and strong for Dawn. She understood, for she was trying to be strong as well, not just for Dawn, but for Willow and all of them. But Xander, Buffy, and Willow had been best friends for years. And it probably didn't help Xander's mental state that he and Buffy had been fighting. Tara suddenly wondered why he had come to the house earlier. Was it to apologize? For all their sakes, she prayed to whatever goddess was listening that he'd get a chance to.

"I'm sorry," Jennifer said, looking up from the computer screen to glance at the three of them. Tara gulped. That couldn't be good. But the woman wasn't finished yet. "Miss Summers is still in surgery. You can wait through there if you would like."

Jennifer pointed to a door, and they silently followed. They walked quickly through the doors, and when Tara saw a familiar redhead, she practically ran to her lover. Willow was sitting in those uncomfortable hospital chairs outside the operating room. Through the windows, they could see Buffy lying on the operating table, hooked up to various machines while doctors and nurses moved quickly around her.

"They won't let me in," Willow said softly when Tara sat down beside her. Xander and Dawn remained standing, staring through the windows.

"That's probably for the best," Tara told Willow. "We don't want to get in the way."

"I know," Willow said, turning her tear-streaked face to her girlfriend, "but they won't tell me anything. Not how long they'll be operating, or if there's any chance she'll..." Willow trailed off, turning her gaze to her feet. None of them wanted to voice their fear.

They remained silent for a long time. None of them knew how long; time seemed to flow differently here, where lives hung in the balance. Eventually, Xander and Dawn sat down. At some point, Xander went to get food from the vending machines. None of them were hungry, but they knew they should be, so they forced down a few bags of snack food. At some point, Dawn fell asleep, her head on Tara's shoulder. Tara just sat there, stroking the teenager's hair and staring into space.

Xander suddenly jumped to his feet and kicked one of the empty chairs. Hard. Tara and Willow stared at him, and Dawn shifted in her sleep. Xander just stood there, running his hands through his hair and breathing heavily.

"I'm not so sure the chair is the culprit here," Willow said, attempting at humor.

Xander tried to smile at her attempt to lighten the mood, but his mood refused to be lightened. "It's just...I should be doing something. Buffy's lying there, and there's nothing I can do to help. It's what we do. We help her when she needs it. Or we're supposed to, anyway." He sat down dejectedly. "She could die, and there's nothing we can do."

His head suddenly snapped up. His gaze flicked between Willow and Tara, then settled on Tara. "There's nothing I can do," he said slowly, "but there is something you can do."

Tara stared at him, alarm settling into the pit of her stomach. "You don't mean..."

"You're a witch, Tara. You can use magic to help her! Doesn't she deserve that!" His voice was deadly calm, and his gaze unwavering.

"Magic and healing were never meant to m-mix," she said, mentally cursing her nervous stammer. "When they do...it goes bad. Xander, the last time we broke the Wicca rules, we ripped her out of h-heaven. She c-certainly didn't deserve that!"

Willow looked at her with sympathy in her eyes, and put her own hand over Tara's. Before she could say anything, though, Xander spoke up again.

"So we brought her back, and yeah, it didn't turn out too well, but now that she's alive, are you just gonna let her die? How is that right?"

"Tara," a small voice began. They all turned to Dawn who was sitting up. "I just woke up...What's Xander asking you to do?"

"Use magic to heal Buffy," the witch replied softly.

"I don't understand. What's so bad about that? And what does it have to do with the resurrection spell?"

Tara looked at Dawn. She could see the fear, and now the hope in the teenager's eyes, and it made her wish she could do something to help. But this...it just felt wrong. "It's wrong to use magic for healing. Magic and medicine don't mix. When people try, it goes wrong. The last time we broke the Wicca code, we brought her back from heaven."

Dawn shook her head in confusion. "But...she's not dead yet, so it's not like she could be in heaven or anything like that."

"She is still here, on this plane, but there are other ways this could go wrong. When we brought her back, we risked bringing back something...else. The same could happen now if we tried to heal her. We could kill her, or we could turn her into something bad. I'm not going to risk doing that to her." Tears were gathering in Tara's eyes, tears from all the emotions she had been trying to suppress. But she would not let them spill now, not when so much was at stake.

"But," Dawn pleaded in a desperate whisper, "there has to be something you can do."

"There isn't," Tara replied. "I'm so sorry, but there isn't."

"You don't know that," Xander said. "You can't know until you try."

Tara gulped at the attack. She didn't know how to convince them, and she just wished Buffy were there. Besides the obvious reasons, she felt that Buffy would understand. The Slayer had similar rules of right and wrong, and she knew from personal experience what happened when they were broken. The witch tried to find the words to make Xander understand, but she couldn't. Then suddenly, she didn't have to.

"Xander, she said no." Tara turned to regard Willow with amazement. But Willow was not done. "Now back off!" she said stridently. "Buffy's not dead. She's the Slayer. I'd say there's still a pretty good chance she'll make it through this, and we won't have to resort to the dark arts. So just...stop talking like she's dying!"

Just as Willow finished her outburst, a doctor stepped out of the operating room. All four of them jumped to their feet, eager and terrified at the same time. The doctor removed the mask on his face with a bloodied glove, then tossed the mask and the gloves into the nearby trash can before turning to them.

"I have some good news...and some bad news," he began. "The good news is we've got her stabilized. The bad news is that we don't know if she'll ever regain consciousness. Frankly, it's a miracle she made it this far."

Willow stared at him. "Are you saying she's...she's in a coma?"

The doctor looked at Buffy's best friend with genuine sympathy. "Yes. Now, we're going to move her to another unit, and then we'll let you visit her one at a time. After that, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Our visiting hours did technically end about...20 minutes ago," he said, glancing at the clock on the wall.

As he moved past them, Willow heard herself say "Thank you" in a broken-hearted voice.


	4. Visitations

Chapter 4: Visitations

"Hey Buffy," Dawn said as she walked into the room.

One of those paper-y hospital blankets was pulled up to Buffy's chest, but Dawn could see that the nurses had put her in an equally paper-y hospital gown. They had forgotten to take her hair down though. Dawn slowly reached out to Buffy's head. Her hand moved gently along the side of her sister's head, stroking the blond hair. Dawn sniffled. She felt like she was going to cry again, but she wasn't sure she had any tears left, which was just as well. She was really getting tired of bawling her eyes out. Taking a deep breath, she lifted Buffy's head with her right hand, being as gentle as she could, while her left hand snaked under to pull out the hair clip. When her task was done, she lowered Buffy's head back to the pillow. Her eyelids didn't even flicker. Her short hair fanned out slightly around her head. Dawn sniffled again. Still clasping the hair clip tightly in her left hand, she pulled a chair up to Buffy's bedside, and sat down slowly.

"Hi. It's me, Dawn," she began. "This feels pretty weird, but I heard it's good to talk to people who are in a...a coma." As she spoke, her voice gained strength. She could do this. She could be strong. She could live. For Buffy. Dawn closed her eyes against the pain as she flashed back to that night nearly a year ago. _The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me. _

"I just really want to say thanks. For pretty much everything." The memories of those last few days refused to leave her alone. "And I'm getting a major sense of dejུ vu, only we're not on a bus, and you're, well, not saying much of anything. Anyway, thanks for everything. You came back, and you didn't want to, but who would want to leave heaven? I can't really blame you for that, although I guess I did for a while. And I'm sorry. You were going through some pretty awful stuff, what with coming back from the dead, and working at the Doublemeat Palace, and Spike, and pretty much all the crappy stuff that's been happening this year. But then life was starting to get good again, for both of us. At least, I think it was for both of us." A hint of worry crept into Dawn's voice, but she didn't let it stop her monologue. "If it wasn't, well, you should get an Oscar. Or maybe an Emmy. I think we'd work better as a TV show than a movie, don't you? It could be called 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' or something like that. I think it would be a great show. All about life on the Hellmouth." Dawn glanced at the clock.

"I don't have much time left. The hospital staff is gonna kick us out soon, and we each wanted a chance to talk to you alone. So I just want you to know that I'll be brave." The tears were threatening again. "I'll try to be strong without you. We survived for a whole summer before. But...that was...hell. So please, come back to me. Come back to us. I don't know if you can hear me," Dawn said, crying now, "but if you can, remember this. I love you. You're the best sister anyone could hope for. And we'll take care of each other without you, but we'll miss you so much. Please...come back."

Dawn stood up now, and placed the hair clip on the small table beside the bed. "This is yours. I'm gonna go give Willow a turn now." With that, she walked quietly out of the room, drying her tears with the back of her hand.

---

Willow sat down in the chair Dawn had vacated. She looked sadly at the face of her best friend. She looked like she was sleeping, like it was just an ordinary night. But this sleep was deeper than any other. Well now that wasn't true. Death was pretty much the deepest sleep there was, and Buffy had died twice. Willow took a deep breath. She didn't have much time tonight, so she wanted to say what she had to say.

"Hi Buffy. It's Willow. I'm not really sure how to start. I'm not used to these one-sided conversations." Willow fell silent for a moment. She felt the need for proximity, so she scooted her chair a little closer, so that her knees were brushing the bed. Buffy's spirit seemed to be so far away, and she wanted so much to shorten that distance. With great effort, she avoided throwing herself on top of her friend's still form. The only thing that was holding her back was the fear of inadvertently hurting Buffy.

"I hope...I hope it didn't hurt much. There was just so much blood..." Willow was lost in her memories for a few seconds, but she quickly returned to her friend. "I really need to apologize. For bringing you back, but for more than that. For getting addicted to magic. Basically for doing my part to make this year suck as much as it did. 'Cause we all know it sucked worse than a vampire. Get it? Sucked? Sorry about the bad joke. It's the stress. You know me. God, how long's it been now? Five years? No, six. Well, almost." Willow looked down at her hands, fidgeting restlessly in her lap. "That's just one of the reasons you've got to wake up, you know? Make it an even six." Her voice was thick with emotion. "But you know, we'll be okay if you don't. Well that's a lie. We could never be okay without you. But we'll make it. We'll do our best to keep the Hellmouth in check. We'll take care of each other. Tara and I will look after Dawnie. We know you'd want us to.

"So I guess what I'm trying to say is not to come back because you're worried about us and you feel like you have to protect us. Come back because we love you. You've been my best friend for almost six years. When we're old and wrinkly and forgetting to take our pills, you'll still be my best friend. Even if you're not there. Even if it's just me forgetting to take my pills. You'll be my best friend. No one could ever take your place. And I'm not talking Slayer place. I mean Buffy place." Willow took Buffy's left hand in both of hers, and squeezed it gently but firmly. Then she turned and left the room.

---

"Hey Buff," Xander said, pretending it was just a regular night, and he was saying hi to his friend like everything was normal. Or as normal as things got for them.

"This is most definitely not normal," he said out loud as he sat down in the chair beside her bed. "Here I am, thinking out loud. I wonder if you can hear me. I'd like to think you can, 'cause I really want you to hear what I've got to say.

"I'm sorry I freaked about the whole Spike thing. I'm still freaked about it, but I'm not angry. God, how did we get here? These past few weeks...I thought I'd hit bottom, but it hurt. That you didn't trust me enough to tell me about Spike. So I was angry. Then I thought about what you said before, at my apartment. About how hard it is to just be here. And I thought, well, we've all done things we're not proud of, and maybe you would've told me about Spike if I hadn't given you so many reasons to think I'd be an ass about it." Xander looked down at his hands which were now clasping Buffy's limp hand.

"I love you so much. I can't imagine life without you and Will, and now I'm terrified that I'm gonna have to find out." He looked up at her face. He swore he saw her eyes moving beneath her eyelids, but he had no clue whether or not that was good or bad. Maybe it didn't mean anything. She was lying so still. The rapid eye movement and the slight rise and fall of her bandaged chest were the only things that kept him convinced she was still alive. "You gotta stop with this dying thing, Buff. It was funny once, maybe twice. Here I am, trying to be funny." Bitterness tinged his voice. "But this is so very not funny.

"I love you, and not in a romantic way; I'm over that. You and Willow are my best friends. You have to wake up. You don't actually have a choice here. If you don't wake up...that would be like giving up, and we both know you hate that. So come on and open your eyes. I bet everyone's saying this, but please...come back."

He put her hand back on the bed and gave it a soft pat. He stood up, but paused before leaving. He stroked her forehead affectionately, then left without a backward glance.

---

Tara walked into the room and sat down wordlessly. She stared at the woman on the bed. Tara didn't think of her as Buffy. Buffy wasn't there. But Tara thought she might be able to find her.

"I'm trying to be strong for them," she said. "For all of them." Even though the other woman wasn't really there, Tara felt the need to talk to her. Perhaps it was simply that she felt the need to tell someone, and it was easier to tell someone who wasn't listening than someone who would listen and remember. "But it's hard. I haven't known you–Buffy–as long as Willow or Xander or Dawn. Or even Anya and Spike. But I think I really came to know you over these past few weeks. You opened up to me, and I know you only did it because I was there, but you did it all the same. You trusted me with your secret. I won't judge you, and I won't tell them. But that's just what I need to talk to you about.

"I want to tell them, but I don't know if you'd want me to. And there's something else. Xander...he wants me to use magic on you. I said no. Willow...she stood up for me. Of course she did," Tara said with a proud smile. "It just goes to show how much she's grown this year. She's made mistakes, but she learned from them. I think maybe you did too. I guess we all did. But there's one lesson that Xander has not learned. What he wants me to do is wrong. I could accidentally kill you, or worse. I could make you really wrong, like you were afraid you were. And even if you almost wanted it then, I believe that you don't want it now. And I believe you understand that there's a line. There's a line between right and wrong that can't be crossed. Yes, there is lots of gray area, but at some point it goes black.

"Slayers don't kill humans. That's your line. Mine is not to mess with the natural order of things. That includes death, and healing. When Willow brought you back from the dead, she crossed a line, and you suffered for it. Now that you're finally learning to live again, I'm not going to risk making you suffer again. But Xander was right about something. I think there is something I can do. I'm not sure yet; I need to do some research, but I promise that I will be back."


	5. Tara's Secret

Chapter 5: Tara's Secret

"We have to tell the others," Willow said sadly.

The four of them were seated around the dining room table, Willow and Tara on one side, Xander and Dawn on the other. They had gotten home from the hospital around midnight. Emotionally drained, they had fallen asleep quickly, although their sleep was, for the most part, not particularly deep or peaceful. They had all slept late, and moved sluggishly through the house for a few hours, trying to keep their minds occupied.

"Oh man," Xander said. "Giles. Anya."

"I'll call Giles," Willow volunteered. "Let's just be careful not to call at some horrible hour."

"Thanks Will," Xander replied. "I'll tell Anya. She's probably at the Magic Box now."

Xander got up to go, and Tara rose as well, moving around the table to put a hand on his arm. "Wait," she said. "I'll come with you." He looked surprised and curious, but not as if he minded. But there was still that look in his eyes–that look she had seen before at the hospital. It frightened her, but she didn't look away. She knew she was right.

"I have to go there anyway. I want to restock my supplies." She turned to Willow. "You don't mind, do you, baby?"

Willow looked up at her in surprise. "Oh no, of course not!" she said. "You, you should have your supplies, you know, in case we ever need them. Don't wanna get massacred 'cause we haven't done our shopping." Willow knew she was starting to babble, and tried to reign in her errant tongue. "I mean, you don't have to worry about me. I won't use it or anything, I promise."

Tara smiled at her. "Thanks." She went to grab her coat, and Xander's too. Dawn's voice halted her in her tracks.

"What about Spike?"

"Oh no," Xander said angrily. "I will not let him anywhere near her."

"But–" Dawn protested.

"No!" Xander said, cutting her off. "The guy's an evil, soulless thing. There's no telling what he'd try to do."

Tara blinked at Xander. This looked like more than his usual hatred of Spike. She frowned and tilted her head at him. He and Buffy had been fighting about Spike, and Willow had said she thought Spike might have hurt Buffy. That frightened Tara–she had thought Spike genuinely cared for the Slayer, in his own twisted way. Looking at Xander, she decided that guilt was probably a very active motivator for not letting Spike near Buffy.

"Xander," Willow began, "he should know. Whatever's been going on between the two of them...we should tell him. He'd find out soon anyway, and then he'd just be angry we didn't tell him."

Xander looked from Willow, to Tara, and to Dawn. "Fine," he said, grabbing his coat from Tara, "but if he touches her, I swear I'll stake him myself." He pulled his jacket on and walked out the door, Tara following behind after exchanging glances with Willow and Dawn.

---

When they reached the Magic Box, Xander approached Anya behind the counter, waiting impatiently for the customer to leave. Finally, the young woman was gone. Anya's attention was on him. And boy, was she laying the anger on thick, he thought as she glared stonily at him.

"What now?" she snapped, looked down at the cash register as she checked the money.

He swallowed. "It's Buffy. She's been shot."

Anya froze, money in hand. She looked up at him in shock.

"Warren shot her. She's in a coma." His voice sounded so calm, so detached. It almost frightened him.

Anya put the money back and closed the cash register. Her eyes remained on her hands as she processed this. Then she looked up at him suddenly, a question in her eyes.

"What happened to him?"

Xander scowled as he met her gaze. "Nothing. He took off. Tara told the police. She and Willow saw it. But god do I wish I could get my hands on that son of a bitch." He leaned against the counter as his voice filled with bitter sarcasm. "It's not that I don't trust the Sunnydale police force–actually, it is that I don't trust the Sunnydale police force."

"Someone's got to do something," Anya said, horrified at the prospect of a free Warren. "He can't just hurt her and get away with it."

"And in no way is this left over from your days as a vengeance demon."

She looked away. "Not left over."

He stared. "Oh."

---

Upon entering the Magic Box, Tara moved away from Xander as he went to talk to Anya. She glanced nervously at them over her shoulder, but the customer was taking up Anya's attention for now, so Tara had some time to do what she needed to do. She walked towards the back of the shop, pausing to shoot a pensive look at the black arts books on the balcony. She did not want to ever have to use those, but she was terribly afraid that one day that would truly be the only choice. But for now, she had another, much better, choice.

She ran her fingers along the spines of the books opposite the counter. Finally, she found the book she wanted, as she sat between the shelves and the stairs. She pulled the book off of the shelf, and sat down on the floor. The stairs offered her the most privacy she could get here in the shop. There were only a few customers, but no way was Anya going to let Tara walk out of there with the book. She'd demand to be told what Tara was planning to do with it, and the witch really didn't want anyone to know. She didn't want to get their hopes up.

She sighed with relief as, glancing through the contents of the book, she discovered that it did indeed contain the necessary spell. She hurriedly pulled a pen and a small notebook out of her purse. She copied down all of the relevant information about the spell of entry, then put the book back on the shelf. Remembering her reason for coming, she happily perused the shelves, picking out supplies. She hadn't been lying; she really had needed to stock up. When she was done, Xander and Anya were waiting for her. The two were oddly quiet as Anya rung up the purchases for her, but Tara put it down to post-non-wedding stress, combined with comatose-Buffy stress. Although there was nothing Tara could do to help them work out their complicated emotions, there was something she could do about the other problem. The witch hid a smile as she and Xander left the store.


	6. Oh Dear Lord

Chapter 6: Oh Dear Lord

Willow sat on her bed sadly. She glanced around the room, searching for some form of distraction. The window was broken, she realized. And there was a hole in the opposite wall. She frowned. A bullet was embedded in the wall. She gasped as she realized what could have happened if she and Tara had stayed in the room just a few minutes longer.

She left her room and walked slowly down the hall. She stepped into Buffy's room. Light was flooding it from the open window. The bed was made. Pictures adorned the mirror above the desk. The closet was open, and Willow could see the vast piles of clothing and shoes. Her eyes returned to the desk. She sighed as she looked at the pictures of them. How had they found time to be so happy when so much horrible stuff always happened to them? Her gaze strayed down to the desk. She fingered Buffy's necklaces, which hung from a small stand. Her breath caught in her throat as she recognized one of the crosses. She knew who had given Buffy this cross. Giles was not the only one she had to call, and if she didn't do this now, she might never get the courage.

With sudden determination, she opened the desk drawers, digging through the contents in search of Buffy's address book. After a few minutes, she finally found it. She flipped through the pages, but the number was not where she had thought it would be. Worried now, Willow checked each page with desperation. It wasn't like Buffy knew that many people. Surely she had his phone number. Oh god, Willow thought, what if she knew it by memory and never bothered to write it down. On the very last page, there was a number with no name. Willow frowned. As she dialed, she prayed that this was the right number.

An unknown voice answered the phone on the fifth ring. "Angel Investigations," the man said.

"Hi," Willow said nervously. "Um, is Angel there?"

"Who's calling?"

"Willow. He...he knows me."

---

"Oh dear lord," Giles whispered as he removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was true. The coven had been right when they told him something bad was coming, and she would be needed. They had sensed that Willow had given up magic. But she was going to turn back to it. She had to. The phone interrupted his melancholy thoughts.

"Hello?"

When Willow answered him, he breathed a sigh of relief. "Willow...thank god. I must speak to you. It's very important...no, it can't be put off. There is this coven–Willow, wait–the coven has told me that something worse than we have ever faced is coming soon. And you will be needed. You will need to go back on the magics. We can start at the very beginning, work on..." He gasped in disbelief as Willow finally told him why she had called.

"God, I'll...I'll come. I'll be on the next plane to California."

---

Back in California, Willow hung up the phone. She didn't want to think about what Giles had said. She walked into the bathroom and splashed water on her face, looking at herself in the mirror. She had been off the magic for so long. She couldn't just start over again, no matter what Giles said. She couldn't. Tara didn't trust her with magic supplies, she thought miserably. But Willow didn't blame her. After all, Willow didn't trust herself. A knock at the door disturbed her reverie.

"Come in," she said, her voice cracking.

"Hey," Tara said as she slipped through the door. "I have to tell you something."

Willow turned to her girlfriend. Tara took the redhead's hands in her own. Her eyes were brimming with love, but there was something hidden, Tara could tell. Maybe Willow saw the same in her own eyes. Tara wondered then if she were even capable of keeping her plan a secret from her love.

"When I asked if it was okay with you if I went to buy magic supplies...it wasn't because I don't trust you," Tara said. "I do, with all my heart. I just meant...I was trying to ask if you didn't mind my leaving. At a time like that."

Willow began to cry at Tara's sweet words. She put her hands on Tara's shoulders, and pressed her forehead against her lover's. "I thought...oh god. I don't know what to do."

Tara held her and whispered soothing sounds as Willow, between sobs, told her what Giles had said. When she was done, Tara led her into their bedroom by the hand. They sat down beside each other on the bed, still holding hands. Tara wiped the tears from Willow's cheeks with her free hand.

"It'll be okay," she whispered. "I promise, we'll get through this. When Giles gets here, he and I can start to help you with the magic. We'll go back to floating pencils. But we'll do it slowly. One spell a day. We'll be careful that we don't overload you. And we'll get through this. And so will Buffy. She's strong."

Willow smiled. "Like an Amazon."

"Yeah," Tara said with a lopsided grin, "like an Amazon. And so are you. We'll get through this together. I promise." The two embraced, and shared a sweet kiss. I promise, Tara said to herself.


	7. Daylight

Chapter 7: Daylight

"Dawnie, do you want to go to school?" Tara called through the door. There was no response.

"It's okay if you don't," Willow said. "We have to go to a few classes, but we'll come by for lunch and when we've got time between classes."

The door opened, and Dawn stepped out, fully dressed in jeans and a baby blue t-shirt. "It's okay," she said. "I'll go to school." Then she squeezed past them and walked down the hall to the bathroom.

Willow frowned after her. Dawnie seemed to be handling the whole situation surprisingly well. "Seemed to" being the operating phrase. Before she could comment on it to Tara, her girlfriend spoke.

"Will, we need to talk."

"Um, okay," Willow said uncertainly. "About what?"

"About Buffy," Tara said softly, stepping into their own bedroom. Willow followed a bit uncertainly and closed the door behind her.

"What about Buffy?"

Tara paced back and forth in front of the bed, wringing her hands nervously before her. "About the things Xander said in the hospital. About magic."

Willow was rapidly growing uneasy. "Tara, baby, we both know how wrong it would be to try to heal Buffy." Willow couldn't help finding it strange that she was telling Tara not to do something because it was wrong. After all, Tara was the one who had an innate sense of right and wrong. Tara was the one who learned immediately from her mistakes, whereas Willow had to go off the deep end before the lesson would sink in.

Tara shook her head, and walked up to Willow until only half a foot separated them. "I'm not going to try to heal her," she said with wide eyes. "But I think I can help her another way." She took a deep breath. "I wasn't going to tell you, and certainly not the others because I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up, but I can't keep secrets from you. Besides, it would feel wrong. And I don't really want to do this alone." She closed the distance between them, putting her arms on Willow's shoulders. "I found the spell at the Magic Box. I have everything I need to do it, except one thing."

Willow frowned. "What do you need?"

Tara looked down at her hands, searching for the right words. "I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it were a good idea...I mean, I really need it. But I know how hard this is for you, so if you don't think you can do it, I'll...I'll understand. And I'll find another way...Maybe Giles can help...I want to ask him anyway. I'm sure he'll approve, especially considering what he said to you on the phone, so..." Tara trailed off, unsure how to continue. She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself compulsively.

"His flight's arriving this afternoon," Willow said.

"Good," Tara sighed. "Good. I'd like his advice before I...we...do this."

Willow looked at her with concern etched onto her face. "What is it, baby? What do you need?"

"An anchor."

---

"See you guys later," Dawn called as she walked out the door, her backpack slung over one shoulder. The way she saw it, she had two options. Option one: go to school, sit in a classroom for seven dull hours, and pretend that everything's okay. Option two: the hell with it. Go someplace else, someplace she didn't have to pretend, didn't have to do what she was told. It really wasn't much of a choice.

The question was where to go, she thought as she walked down the street, towards the bus stop, just in case someone was watching from the window. There were really only two places she wanted to go. The hospital or Spike's crypt. She wanted to see Buffy, but she wasn't sure the hospital staff would let her in. All that crap about her being a high school student. Spike, however, wouldn't care that she was skipping school. And he was sure to be there. After all, it was daylight.

About twenty minutes later, Dawn stood at the door to Spike's crypt. It felt strange to be here under the bright morning sun. The crypt looked very different under the harsh sunlight. She couldn't exactly put her finger on it, but she thought it looked more like a crypt. More empty of life, as if it was nothing but a repository for bones. When she visited Spike after sundown, it just felt like any home. A small, cold, stone home that was in the middle of a cemetery, but a home nonetheless. Spike's home. The home of a friend, who just happened to be undead.

She bit her lip and stood nervously in front of the stone door. Then she stepped forward and pushed it open. She glanced around the room as she walked inside. Spike was not there.

"Spike?" she called.

There was no answer. Maybe he's just asleep, she said to herself. She moved through the crypt, going down to the lower level in search of the vampire. But he was not there. Feeling very frustrated and alone, Dawn stood in the crypt trying to figure out what to do. She could try the hospital, but then she might get caught. She couldn't go to the mall because she'd been banned from every store that had anything worth having. She couldn't go home for fear of being caught by Willow or Tara. She couldn't hang out in the Magic Box because Anya would probably turn her in. And she certainly couldn't go to school.

Dawn stepped dismally into the sun. She began to walk through the cemetery, her mind as empty as she could make it. She didn't pay attention to where she was going, simply letting her feet carry her wherever they would. She wasn't really surprised when they stopped in front of a grave. She knelt by the tombstone.

"Hi Mom," she began.

---

Giles dozed fitfully on the plane. The man beside him was overweight, and kept shifting in his seat. No matter how often he changed positions, it did not change the fact that he was overflowing onto Giles' seat. Giles leaned against the side of the plane, trying to retain as much personal space as possible.

He was drifting in a hazy space, in between sleep and waking when a baby's cry shattered his temporary peace. As he returned to being fully awake, his thoughts returned to Buffy. It was hard to believe that she was in a coma. After everything they had been through, to be taken down by a bullet, a piece of metal...it was mind-boggling. He blinked slowly and stared out the window, watching the United States pass beneath his eyes. The sunlight streamed in, banishing any remaining sleep from his eyes.

---

Angel stood in his room at the hotel, pacing back and forth in front of the curtained window. He could see the sunlight around the edges. The sunlight that was keeping him from her. She needed him, he was sure. And even if she didn't, he needed to see her, to convince himself that this was really happening. Or to prove that it was all a nightmare. He knew he should sleep, but he couldn't. So he continued to pace as he waited for the sun to go down.


	8. Sunset

Chapter 8: Sunset

Giles was struck with a wave of humidity as he stepped off of the plane. Good old California, he thought to himself. What he wouldn't give for some decent rain clouds over in the States. It would match the mood much better than the ever-glaring sun. He raised his hand to his forehead, trying to block the sun. To his mind, it was a mockery of everything that was wrong here.

He saw Willow, Tara, Xander, and Dawn crossing the tarmac to meet him. It was good to see them, even if the circumstances were grim. He picked up his suitcase and walked hurriedly to meet them.

"Welcome back, G-man," Xander greeted him as the two men clasped hands.

"I told you not to call me that," Giles replied, but he was smiling as he said it. God, he'd missed them so much.

"Hey Giles," Dawn said quietly.

"Dawn," he said, giving her an affectionate hug.

Tara was next. The witch gave him her trademark sweet smile, but when they pulled away from the hug, he caught the serious expression on her face. He gave her a questioning look, and she looked him in the eye as if to say, "Later."

Giles nodded, and turned to Willow. It was so good to see her. "Oh Willow," was all he could say as they looked at each other awkwardly. She seemed nervous, but that was hardly a surprise. Especially since her best friend was in a coma and Giles had told her to get back on the magics. They just looked at each other for a few moments, then simultaneously rushed to wrap each other in a warm embrace.

---

"Here," Tara said. "I found these in the closet."

The witch handed Giles a pile of sheets. As he held them in his hands, he flashed back to a similar moment several months ago. _I know they're so cute you could die, but it's all I got._ Giles placed the pile of sheets next to him on the couch. He looked up at Tara.

"I can see what you're doing," he said softly. She looked at him, shocked.

"What do you mean?"

He tried to smile for her, but all he could manage was a slight twitch of the lips. "Being strong for them. All of them. You're putting them first. It's very brave."

"Um, thank you," she said a bit uncertainly.

"And how are you doing? I understand that you and Willow are back together?"

Tara sat down beside him, moving the sheets out of her way. "Yes. For a few days now. She's doing really well, with the magic. She's afraid to get back on it though." Before he could say anything, she continued. "And I need to talk to you about that. When we were waiting in the hospital, Xander said some things." She took a deep breath and gazed down at her hands in her lap. "He asked me to do a spell. To heal Buffy."

Giles inhaled sharply and Tara looked up at him, meeting his eyes as she continued to speak.

"I said no. I told him how wrong that would be. How dangerous for Buffy. And I meant it, every word. I'm not going to risk doing that to her. But I want to help her, and I think I've found a way. It's not a healing spell," she assured him. "I haven't told the others, just Willow. I don't want to get their hopes up. Besides, I wanted your approval. You see, with this spell, I would need an anchor. I think if we want this to work, Willow's the best choice."

Giles took off his glasses and began to polish them absentmindedly as he stared at nothing in particular. "What did she say when you asked her?"

"That she was afraid. Afraid of losing control. But that if I needed it, and if you approved, then she'd try."

Giles was silent for several moments. "Perhaps it would be for the best. I had planned to have her begin with something a little more basic, such as floating pencils. But in a way this is fitting; Willow's first spell, after all, was one of incredible power. Yet I would like you to tell me everything you know about this spell. But first, I think we have another problem that will arise at sunset. It is best discussed with everyone."

Tara looked quizzical, but she just nodded. "I'll go get them." She rose from the couch, but turned back to him. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Understanding."

He gave her a genuine smile. "You are very welcome."

---

Anya stared at the money in her hands. She idly thought about doing her Dance of Capitalist Superiority. She hadn't done it since Xander had walked out on her at the not-wedding. Her love of money had not decreased one whit since she had tearfully accepted D'Hoffryn's job offer. Sometimes the Magic Box was her only source of joy. It was her pride, her work, her joy; it was practically her life now. Xander had been her life until he'd gotten cold feet. She had thought returning to the vengeance fold would give her pleasure, but it was all just...lacking. Lacking what? she asked herself, but she did not know. Sighing, Anya placed the money in the cash register and closed it.

This was not the time for the Dance of Capitalist Superiority. Buffy was in a coma, and she probably wasn't going to wake up, and everybody was really sad. She couldn't do a happy dance at a time like this. It made her feel guilty, although she wasn't really sure why. She was kind of angry at the lot of them anyway. Especially Xander. But she still couldn't shake the guilty feeling. Guilty for not being sad. She didn't know why she cared, and it made her angry. However, she had determined the suitable way to deal with this. She just had to do something to make up for not being sad enough.

A slow smile spread across her face as she contemplated her options. It wasn't as if she did that many things. But there was one thing she was _very_ good at. And it had to be done, she was sure of that. All she needed was the right person. She scowled as a she remembered her failed attempts at getting the gang to make a wish. None of them would do it. Then she remembered Halfrek's words from a few nights ago. _I've been telling you for decades - men need a little vengeance now and then, too. _

It was a perfect plan. He loved her; he was angry with her, but she knew he loved her. He would want vengeance. Anya felt like laughing as she turned out the lights and put up the CLOSED sign. She locked the door behind her as she walked out into the twilight.


	9. Something Special

Chapter 9: Something Special

"So what's the what?" Dawn said. "Why the big gathering?"

She, Willow, Tara, Xander, and Giles were seated around the dining room table. Giles was at the head of the table, and everyone was looking to him, waiting for him to speak. Finally, he turned to Tara, who was sitting on his left.

"Is everyone here? What about Anya?" he said.

"I called the Magic Box, but she wasn't there. I left a message at her apartment asking her to come here when she gets the message."

"Well," he said, "I suppose we had better get started. We have a problem. I know, I know, we all knew that. Warren has shot Buffy, she's in a coma, and the police have yet to apprehend him. However, I fear that he is not our biggest concern." The Brit had all of their attention now. "You see, it is only a matter of time until the denizens of the underworld hear that the Slayer is...temporarily out of commission. When the sun goes down, I fear that she will be under attack."

They all glanced apprehensively at the window.

"Um, Giles?" Willow said. He looked over to her. "It's already sunset."

"Yes, I do not believe that they would attempt anything during visiting hours. Too many witnesses, you see. However, we should get there as soon as possible. I thought perhaps Tara could perform a warding spell around Buffy's room?"

All eyes turned to the witch. She bit her lip as she thought about Giles's proposition. "I don't think that would work. I could put up a shield, but the hospital workers would kick us out eventually, and then if a demon managed to puncture it, well...that would be it. I think it would be better if we stayed to watch her. I could put up a cloaking spell around us. We would be invisible to everyone else."

"Angel will probably show tonight," Willow added. "He can help with the fighting and all that...if there is fighting."

"What about Spike?" Dawn said. "He could help."

"No way," Xander said.

"He could!" Dawn protested. "He wouldn't let anything happen to her."

"That's a laugh."

"Xander!" Dawn cried.

Everyone began speaking at once. Willow tried to placate Dawn, and Tara attempted to reason with Xander. Meanwhile Giles was just trying to get everybody to stop shouting. It was a complete failure. Until a voice came from behind them.

"If you're talking about Spike, there's really no point."

They all spun around to see Anya standing there, looking very frustrated.

---

Fifteen minutes ago...

Clem popped _The Wedding Planner_, which he had been dying to see, into the VCR. He sat down in the armchair and picked up his bowl of Doritos. As the FBI warning appeared on the screen, he began munching. Ugh, he thought to himself, these Nacho Cheese chips hurt my tongue...The movie was about to begin, so he pressed pause and went in search of some Cooler Ranch.

"Aha!" he said to himself in triumph as he found the desired chips.

He heard the VCR stop in the other room, and the TV program began to play. He ambled back into the living room, happily snacking on the chips. Then the air shimmered and he dropped his chips in surprise.

"Holy cow!" he shouted as a woman materialized out of thin air.

"You're not Spike," she said petulantly.

"Umm, no," he replied as his heartbeat returned to normal. "Hey, I know you. Anya, right?"

"Yeah, umm..."

"Clem," he supplied.

"Yes, you were at my not-wedding and Buffy's birthday."

He grinned at her. "So...um...what's with the whole teleporting thing? That's new, right?"

She smiled and pushed a strand of blond hair behind her ear. "Yeah, I'm a vengeance demon again. D'Hoffryn gave me my old job back after, well, you know."

Clem nodded. "Oh. Well, would you like to sit down?" He grabbed the remote and muted the TV. "Or a snack?"

"No thanks," Anya replied. "Sorry about your chips," she said, looking down at the mess on the floor.

"Don't worry about it," he said good-naturedly. "Sure you don't want anything? I've got Nacho Cheesier!"

She shook her head. "Look, Clem, have you seen Spike?"

Clem glanced at her with surprise. "Spike? He's gone. He took off a few nights ago. He could be gone for a while. That's why I'm staring here for him. Sweet pad like this goes empty for a few days, you'll lose it for sure...Plus, I don't have a TV. Why, do you need him?"

"I was kind of hoping he could help me with a little something," she said in hushed tones. "Since he left, he must not have heard."

"Heard what?" Clem asked innocently.

"Buffy's been shot. She's in a coma. And the geek who did it got away."

"Oh no!" Clem said sympathetically. "She's such a sweet girl! I mean, most Slayers don't get too friendly with the floppy-eared," he said, gesturing at his own ears. "Man, she was something special. Is, I mean. Is something special."

"Yeah, well, I should be going."

"All right, well, see you around. Give my best wishes to her sister. Let me know if she wakes up."

Anya gave him a little smile, and vanished.

"Bye," he said with a small wave. Sighing, Clem sat down in the armchair and picked up the remote. He un-muted the television and pressed play. He stared at the screen as _The Wedding Planner_ began, but he was not really seeing it.

---

Well, my plan sure isn't going very well, Anya thought to herself as she sat in the backseat of Xander's car with Dawn. Willow and Tara were with Giles in his rental car. They were on their way to the hospital to guard Buffy. Apparently, Giles was expecting all the local vampires to try to take her out. And while they had their hands full protecting the comatose Slayer, Warren was nowhere to be found, not that anyone was really looking. She sighed and leaned back in her seat. Spike was now out of the question. She'd have to find someone else to make the wish.

---

"Change, goddamn it," Angel growled at the red traffic light. He had left LA as soon as the sun was low enough on the horizon for him to go out. The drive to Sunnydale had never seemed so long before.

He knew there was really no need for him to get there quickly. Willow had told him that the doctors didn't expect her to wake up. They had said the same thing about Faith, but he prayed that it wouldn't take Buffy eight months to wake up. Still, he knew the chances of her waking up now, less than a week after being shot, were next to nothing. But he couldn't help feeling that if he could just get there, just see her, and hold her hand, everything would be okay. Or if not okay, at least better.

The light finally turned to green, and he shot forward. Even if his brain was telling him to slow down, to drive under the speed limit, his heart knew that he had to get there. He had to be with her. He had to.


	10. No Change

Chapter 10: No Change

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave," the nurse said. "Our visiting hours end in ten minutes."

Tara and Giles exchanged a meaningful look, but didn't say anything. They were standing in the doorway to Buffy's hospital room, along with Willow, Xander, Anya and Dawn. When the nurse didn't leave, they realized that he was looking for some sort of affirmation.

"That's fine," Giles said to the young man. "We will be gone in a few minutes."

The nurse, who did little to hide his mistrust, looked over the small group before nodding to himself and walking away. The Scoobies stepped into the relative privacy of the room, closing the door behind them.

"We haven't got much time left," Giles said. "We had better get started with the cloaking spell."

"Willow, Xander, Anya, and Dawn," Tara said as she stepped into the role of the leader with only well-hidden anxiety. "You stay by the door. Make sure no one is watching through the window. Giles, you are going to help me with the herbs. But first, I have to annoint us all."

Two minutes later, they were all standing in their assigned positions with a thick brown substance that looked suspiciously like mud smeared around their eyes. Tara sat cross-legged in the center of the room, her eyes closed and her hands on her knees. Giles walked around her, lighting candles in a pentagonal formation around the witch. When he was done, he stepped back to join the other four. Tara began to speak.

"Light of our souls be harbored. Be reflected only within. Our light in others' eyes extinguished."

Tara began to whisper in Latin, and she could feel the magic rising within her. As it did, she became more acutely aware of her surroundings, despite the fact that her eyes remained shut. She could smell the incense. She could hear the gentle breathing of the others. She could feel the rising panic in Willow at the proximity of the magic. She could feel Willow's desire to reach out with her mind, to tap into the power Tara was now channeling. Just as she began to truly worry that the former witch would give in, she felt Willow withdraw within herself, resisting the temptation. Tara felt a proud smile spread across her face. And through it all she could hear Buffy's soft, steady breaths, and feel the power within the comatose Slayer.

Then she opened her eyes. A warm wind whipped around them, and blew out the candles. "It's done," she whispered.

---

Giles frowned and cleaned his glasses. Xander and Anya has just gone in search of food, and Dawn was in the bathroom. Now seemed to be the best chance. He turned away from the window and looked at Tara. She glanced at him. He could tell she had been thinking the same thing. He followed her gaze to where Willow sat silently beside Buffy. Feeling their gaze upon her, Willow tore her eyes away from her best friend and looked at them.

"What?" she said.

Tara sighed. "It's time," she said gently. "If we want to reach her, we should do it now. Are you ready?"

Willow gulped, and glanced back down at Buffy. She sniffed, and looked a bit teary as she patted Buffy's limp hand. Then she turned back to Tara, resolve face in place. "I guess we won't know 'til we find out." She frowned, perplexed. "I guess that goes without asking; we won't know until we find out."

Tara gave her lover a lopsided small, and took her hand, leading her away from the bed and into the center of the room. Giles stood silently behind them, between Willow and the door. He folded his arms across his chest and tried to prepare himself for what might ensue.

---

She was drifting. Drifting in the nothingness. But she wasn't nothing. She didn't think she was. She. Who was she?

A name floated to her through the vacuum. _Buffy_. Yes, that was her name: Buffy. But who was Buffy?

More words came to her through the nothingness. _Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer. _Slayer. She knew that word. _You live on the Hellmouth: Sunnydale, California._ Hellmouth._ You have a younger sister, Dawn. _Dawn. More names came to her, names of her friends, her family. Descriptions of them, and of her, came. Bits and pieces of her life floated back to her. But they didn't come from her.

_Who are you?_ she whispered into the vacuum, the emptiness. Only it wasn't really empty because something was there. And she was. She wasn't abandoned. She was loved, and now she knew it. Now she knew who she was. But she didn't know how she knew, or why.

_Tara_. Another name from the fog. A name she knew. A voice she knew. She had a name, and a voice, to cling to.

_I am here to help you. You've been hurt. You'll be okay if you wake up. I cannot bring you back to the world. Only you can do that._

_Then why are you here? And what do you mean 'wake up'? Where am I?_

_You're in a coma. Your body is in Sunnydale Hospital. And so is mine. But our essences are...somewhere else. Your subconscious, perhaps. Or perhaps there's some other place, a place where souls go. Either way, we should not stay here. Like I said, I can't wake you up. But if there is something keeping you here, perhaps you can overcome it. _

_Something keeping me here?_ She was having difficulty keeping track of what was being said here. Everything was fuzzy and disorienting. _Like a demon?_

_Maybe. I don't think so. Your personal demons, perhaps. But you are a fighter. It may be hard, but if you confront whatever is keeping you here, I think it might manifest itself physically, or what passes for physically here._

A fighter. Yes, she was a fighter. She had always fought for what was right. Now she would be fighting for herself. She suddenly felt...something. Hope? A little. Then she felt something else. If she could have frowned, she would have.

_There's something else here_, she said.

Tara was shocked. She did not say anything.

_You're not alone_, Buffy told her.

_I have to go._

Then Tara was gone, and Buffy was left alone. But she knew what she had to do. She opened her eyes. And was confronted by darkness. She was lying on her back. Her eyes began to adjust. She took a deep breath, only to find the oxygen supply sadly lacking. Her eyes widened as she gasped for air. Her hands roamed across the cloth-covered wood of her trap. She had to get out.

---

Willow gasped for air. She felt as if she had run a mile, and the coach was asking her to run ten more. She could feel the magic coursing through her. She wasn't really using it, she was just serving as an anchor. But she could feel it just the same. And she yearned to touch it with every fiber of her being. She had thought being in the same room as Tara while she did her cloaking spell had been hard, but it was nothing compared to this. It was calling her. It was stronger than her. She couldn't control it, and she knew it. But then, wasn't that the way it was supposed to be?

Controlled power was a euphemism for less power. And Giles said she needed to get back on the magics. That she would need that power. Her power. Uncontrolled. She could feel it just spiritual inches away from her probing mind. She was slipping, and she knew it. Blackness began to cloud her vision. She tried to pull back, but it was so hard. No. She had to fight it. She had to be strong, like an Amazon. Strong for Tara. Tara, who was right there, who did not want her to lose control. Who believed in her, with or without the magic.

Then Tara was there, and the magic was gone. Tara was there, looking at her with worried, knowing eyes. They both knew how close she had gone to the edge. But she had not gone over. She had passed the first trial. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around to see Giles kneeling behind her. He gave her a benevolent almost-smile in his very British way.

"Are you two alright?"

Willow looked at Tara. "Yeah," she said. "I think so."

"Well then," he said as he got to his feet, "why don't we go check on Buffy?"

Willow nodded, and got to her feet, along with Tara. The three of them approached the bed anxiously. The doctors had removed the breathing tube earlier that day. The various machines she was still hooked up to were still whirring and beeping. Giles, Willow, and Tara stood there, looking down at Buffy anxiously. They stood there silently, and time dragged by as they waited for a sign.

"There's no change," Giles whispered finally.


	11. Personal Demons

Chapter 11: Personal Demons

Angel stood outside of the emergency wing of the hospital and pondered his options. He knew that the staff would not let visitors in at this time of night, but he had to see her. It had already been far too long. He waited in the shadows as people approached quickly. An older man was carrying a little boy, presumably his son, who was crying against his father's chest. The man rushed through the doors and Angel slipped silently in behind him. As the nurses were distracted by the pair, Angel made his way down the hall.

Centuries of creeping about were useful when he could not afford to be noticed, and now was one of those times. Once he was out of the emergency wing, he let himself relax. There were only a few people in the halls, and his heightened senses allowed him to hide long before they were actually in view. He followed the signs to the intensive care unit, but soon he found that he did not need any signs to tell him where Buffy was. He just knew. He was practically running when he heard a harsh whisper.

"Angel!"

He turned to the voice. He couldn't see anyone, but he could smell someone. The scent was familiar, but he was having a hard time placing it until something touched his arm.

"Angel," the voice whispered, "it's me, Dawn."

And suddenly she was there, her hand on his arm. Now that he knew she was there he wondered how he could have missed her before. A small smile crept across his face. "You're cloaked."

"Yup," she said cheerily. Several seconds of awkward silence stretched between them before she spoke again, this time in a soft, gentle voice. "Come on. I'll take you to her."

---

Buffy couldn't stop the panic rising in her chest. She couldn't breathe, and spots were starting to dance before her eyes. The world was getting steadily fuzzier as she punched, kicked, and scratched at the wood until finally it gave way. Earth poured in around her, but she quickly thrust her head through the small, jagged hole.

She still couldn't breathe, and now she really couldn't see. She instinctively tried to blink. That was a mistake. The dirt stung terribly as it was pressed against her bare eyes. Dirt was filling her eyes and mouth as she struggled to pull her body through the small hole. Finally her legs were free, and she hauled her limbs through the soil. It was like she was trying to swim, only she was drowning in a solid, and just as she felt that she could not go on any longer, her hand broke the surface. She summoned all of her remaining strength to pull herself the rest of the way up.

---

Angel watched in silence through the window. A woman lay on the hospital bed. He couldn't think of her as Buffy. Even though he knew it was her, the thought did not seem to have sunk in, and he did not think he'd really believe until he'd seen her face. Now, all he could see was her lower body, which was covered by a hospital blanket, a few inches of her torso, and two limp arms. Obscuring her head sat Giles, his hands wrapped around one of hers. His lips were moving, and Angel could softly hear the words through the wall. Vampiric hearing didn't miss much.

"I wonder if you'll ever forgive me," the Watcher was saying. "Although I'm not sure I deserve it. But then, we both know from personal experience that to forgive is an act of mercy. It's not done because people deserve it; it's done because they need it. I need it, and I need you to wake up to give it to me."

Angel stood as a silent witness to the man's pain. He knew guilt, and he could see it plain as day. Angel himself felt a bit guilty listening, but he was so close to her. Angel didn't have it in him to leave now, nor could he walk through that door. So he watched, and he listened.

"I am deeply sorry, Buffy. I never should have left. I should never have abandoned you. I thought I was right; I thought I had to leave for you to be an adult. Sometimes the most adult thing you can do is ask for help when you need it. I see that now..."

Giles trailed off, staring at Buffy.

"You cut your hair," he whispered, almost too softly for Angel to hear.

She cut her hair? Angel thought in shock. He wondered what it looked like, but he was sure she was as beautiful as ever.

---

Buffy lay on the grass, gasping like a fish out of water. She struggled to fill her lungs and get the mud out of her mouth. She fought the urge to rub her stinging eyes with her bloody hands as she attempted to clear her vision. She felt as though the very air were pressing her to the ground, trying to push her back into the Earth.

_It was me that took you out of the Earth. Well now, the Earth wants you back._

Buffy furrowed her brow. The voice was so familiar, but she was hearing everything as if through a filter. Everything sounded muffled, and her vision was still blurry. She pushed herself to her feet wearily and inspected her surroundings.

Trapped. She was still trapped, trapped beneath the earth. The familiar panicky feeling returned full force as the dirt walls began to come to life around her.

"Personal demons, here I come," she said aloud.

As the mud demons pulled free of the dirt and began to advance, she raised the sword she found in her hand.

TBC

Please review. PLEASEEEE! Only 1 person has reviewed so far. That is very depressing!


	12. Lost

Chapter 12: Lost

She looked so young and deceptively frail. He knew from personal experience that she was most definitely not frail, and she was not very young either. Of course she'd had to grow up fast. She was the Slayer, destined to die at a ripe old age of early twenties. But seeing her like this...She'd died twice already, died at the hands of powerful beings. The Master, a vampire so old that his demonic face had overcome any lingering vestiges of humanity, and Glorificus, a goddess who had ruled a dimension of unspeakable horror and torment, were worthy opponents of the Slayer. A misogynistic geek was so incredibly...lame.

Angel sighed and squeezed her hand. He listened to the soft whispers of her gentle breathing as he concentrated on the slow but steady pulse beneath his fingers. His thumb rubbed slow circles on her palm. His eyes traveled up to her pale, expressionless face.

"I tried," he said hoarsely. "I tried so hard to give you what I thought you deserved. A normal life. I guess it was a hopeless cause. You would never have a normal life and we both knew it. But at least you could've had someone who could watch the sunset with you. We had that once, although you'll never know. But I just want you to know that I really tried to move on, I–"

Angel instantly went on the alert as the door opened behind him. The gang were outside, watching for any sign of demonic activity. Angel relaxed when he realized who the intruder was.

"Oh, I'm sorry Angel, I didn't mean to interrupt..." Willow trailed off, unsure what to say.

"It's okay," he said softly.

She nodded and twisted her hands anxiously. "I just thought you should know that we're changing shifts. Dawn, Xander, and Giles are going to take over for me, Tara, and Anya for awhile. If you want to rest..." Angel shook his head and the redhead looked as if she understood. "Well, when you're, well, done in here...let them know." He nodded, and she turned to go.

"Willow, wait," he found himself saying. He felt like he had something to say to her, but he didn't know what.

She looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Yeah?"

"It's just...um...you don't...you don't have to go. If you want to stay here, with her, that's okay. You loved her too."

Willow looked down at the ground. She sniffed, as if she were trying not to cry. She moved to stand behind him, and they both looked down at the figure on the bed.

"It's something, isn't it?" she began. "One tiny piece of metal..."

"Destroys everything," he finished.

---

Damn it, Buffy thought as she practically bent over backwards to avoid having her throat ripped out, where are they all coming from? Well she knew that. The Earth. Or at least her subconscious's wacked-out version of the Earth.

She placed her hands against the earth and used her momentum to flip over so that she was standing upright once more. In one fluid motion, she retrieved her sword from the ground and sliced through two of the demons. She sensed more than saw something in her peripheral vision, and spun out of the way as yet another demon emerged from the earth and swung its claw-like limbs at the space she had so recently occupied.

Buffy hacked apart the demon in front of her, but another popped up behind it and knocked her sword out of her hand. Crap, she thought as it flew through the air to stick, quivering, in the earthen walls of her trap. Buffy threw punches and kicks at the demons surrounding her, but she was so tired. She wasn't physically tired, but she was mentally exhausted. She had been fighting what seemed to be an endlessly reproducing army of mud demons for a good ten minutes. She didn't know how to beat them, and she didn't know how to get out of here. Light was coming from a hole far above her. She could see trees and clouds, but she couldn't see a way to get there. She wanted more than anything to be up there, but she was trapped down here. It's my mind, she said to herself. Shouldn't I have some sort of control?

She gasped in shock as claws pierced her side, and weight on her back sent her crashing to the ground. All she could see was blackness as the demons piled on top of her. Well, she thought, I guess I'm stuck down here, in my hellish subconscious. I guess I've lost.

TBC

A/N: I'm going away for the next two weeks, so I wanted to get this bit posted before I leave tomorrow. I know what's gonna happen in the next chapter, but I don't know what's gonna come after that. I've decided that I'm going to write two endings when I get back, one serious and one not because I had this great idea for a joke ending. Unfortunately, I can't decide on a serious ending that's not too mushy. You see, this fic was originally gonna end with Willow calling Angel and them saying the "one tiny piece of metal" line. Anyway, if anyone has suggestions for an ending, feel free to email me about it or post it in a review. If I use your idea, I'll give you credit for it! But even if you don't have a suggestion, please review anyway! Thanks very much to everyone who has reviewed so far, you guys rock.


	13. Everything

A/N: Hey, I just rewrote Angel's monologue (August 22). Hope you like!

Chapter 13: Everything

Buffy struggled futilely, but as the demons drove her head into the dirt, oxygen became an issue. Her limbs stopped their weak jerking, twitched once or twice, then went still as spots swam before her eyes. She was surprised to find that her surrender didn't bring the peaceful anticipation of death, a real end to life, whether or not her body remained in stasis on the mortal plane, that she had been expecting. She was surprised by the depth of her sadness. Instead of peace, or even the blackness of unconsciousness, images, memories, assailed her eyes and ears.

_She walked through burning streets, and her eyes alighted on a group of people–no, not people: demons–a group of demons in the middle of the street. She walked closer, mesmerized, blinking desperately to clear her vision. Between the demons she could see a vaguely familiar form. She stopped in her tracks as recognition floated up out of the fog that was her mind. Her shocked mind was attempting to process this information when a scream ripped from her throat as she was violently, viciously, torn apart. Then the demons turned to her, and she was running, blind fear coursing through her, along with the knowledge that she had died, that she had lost her peace, that she was here, in this place, this hell...Her dazed mind ran in circles and she did not even realize that the demons were far behind her, that the threat was gone, for now..._

That memory faded, only to be replaced by another.

"_Clawed her way out of a coffin, that's how. Isn't that right?"_

"_Yeah. That's what I had to do."_

The next memory followed with dizzying speed.

"_Did they tell you you belonged here? Did they say this was your home again? Were you offered pretty lies, little girl? Or did they even give you a choice? You're the one who's barely here. Set on this Earth like a bubble. You won't even disturb the air when you go."_

They came faster and faster, leaving her overwhelmed and out of breath, desperately trying to control her own mind.

"_I was happy. Wherever I was, I was happy...at peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time didn't mean anything. Nothing had form, but I was still me, you know? And I was warm...and I was loved...and I was finished. Complete. I don't understand about theology or dimensions, or any of it, really, but I think I was in heaven. And now I'm not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out by my friends. Everything here is...hard, and bright, and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch...This is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that, knowing what I've lost..."_

"_Well, 'cause, you know, since you've been back, you haven't exactly been big with...the whole range of human emotions thing."_

"_It's only a matter of time before you realize I'm the only one here for you, pet. You got no one else!"_

"_Don't you get it? Don't you see? You came back wrong."_

"_I may be dirt, but you're the one who likes to roll in it, Slayer."_

"_Do you even like me?"_

"_Sometimes."_

"_But you like what I do to you."_

"_Buffy, I-I promise, there's nothing wrong with you."_

"_There has to be! This just can't be me, it isn't me. Why do I feel like this? Why do I let Spike do those things to me?"_

"_You mean hit you...Oh. Oh, huh. Really."_

"_He's everything I hate. He's everything that I'm supposed to be against. But the only time that I ever feel anything is when...Don't tell anyone, please."_

"_I won't."_

"_The way they would look at me...I just couldn't..."_

"_I won't tell anyone. I wouldn't do that."_

"_Why can't I stop? Why do I keep letting him in?"_

"_Do you love him? I-It's okay if you do. He's done a lot of good, and, and he does love you. A-and Buffy, it's okay if you don't. You're going through a really hard time, and you're..."_

"_What? Using him? What's okay about that?"_

"_It's not that simple."_

"_It is! It's wrong. I'm wrong. Tell me that I'm wrong, please...Please don't forgive me, please...please don't...Please don't forgive me..." _

Buffy squeezed her eyes shut against the memories assailing her senses. All of the rage, the hatred, the pain returned to her, as strong as it had been at the time. She pressed her hands to her ears to shut out the sound of her own sobs, unaware that they were coming from her present body, and not a past moment of weakness. She withdrew her hands as another sound filled her head, drowning out the cries.

"_So one by one they turn from me_

_I guess my friends can't face the cold_

_But why I froze_

_Not one among them knows_

_And never can be told"_

Buffy opened her eyes to find light; feeling as if she'd been lost in the darkness for days, her eyes sought out the source of the light with a desperation that had been lacking in her fight with the demons. The light was streaming down from an opening above her. The Slayer could see her friends and family talking and laughing without her, so far out of reachShe stared up at them with tears in her eyes. A familiar voice cut off the happy sounds of Willow, Xander, Dawn, Anya, and Tara.

"_You see, you try to be with them, but you always end up in the dark. With me. What would they think of you if they found out all the things you've done? If they knew who you really were?"_

Buffy turned from the light and looked down. There, in the ground beneath her, crouched Spike. She knew the words to come before they reached her ears.

"_Don't."_

"_Stop me..."_

She closed her eyes, trying to shut him out, trying to shut the memories out.

"_No, don't close your eyes."_

She couldn't help obeying. Her eyes opened of their own accord and turned to regard the sunny day above her.

"_Look at them. That's not your world. You belong in the shadows. With me."_

Buffy watched in horror as the vampire began to rise from the ground, one hand snaking out to grasp her ankle before she could retreat. A new, harsher memory assaulted her already reeling mind when his hand came into contact with her skin.

"_No, ow, ow. Please, please, Spike, please..."_

"You'll feel it again, Buffy," Spike said as he lunged forward with his other hand, catching her other leg before she could kick him away.

"Please don't do this," she pleaded, the words coming from her own mouth this time.

"I'm gonna make you feel it."

With that, he began to pull her into the earth. She wept and struggled in his grasp, frantically clawing at the crumbling dirt as she was pulled under.

---

Angel was sitting by her bedside, one hand gripped hers, the other pressed to his forehead. His brooding was shattered as her pulse quickened beneath his fingers. His head snapped up, and he looked from her face to the heart monitor as her heartbeat went quicker and quicker. He didn't need a doctor to tell him that it was not a good sign.

"Oh no, Buffy no," he whispered in horror. "You can't go like this; you can't leave me like this."

His head bowed in grief, he wrapped both of his cold hands around her warm one. "I know I left you, and not just once. I was so sure I was doing the right thing...for you, and for the world. But now I'm not so sure."

Angel watched in shock as her face shifted. Her eyes moved rapidly beneath her eyelids as her brow furrowed slightly. The corners of her mouth twisted as if she were in pain. The vampire blinked back tears as he struggled to voice his fears.

"Where would we be if I'd stayed, if I'd never left? Or if I'd stayed with you last time, when you wept in my arms and cried for help? Would you still be lying here, d–" He paused and gulped. "I was so wrong. I thought I could live without you. I thought I could maybe even move on." He snorted. "I tried. I really thought I could love Cordelia. I do love her, but not like I love you. I can never love anyone with every fiber of my soul, like I love you. You're irreplaceable, you hear that? Which is why you can't die, you can't leave me alone again. When you died last time, I had to keep going; I had to be strong. But I don't have it in me to do it again. The idea of an eternity without even the hope of someday seeing your smile, hearing your laugh, gazing into your eyes one last time...it's just too much. I can't go on without you. You're my happiness, my goddamn metaphorical sunshine, my soul...You're my everything."

Angel held his gaze on her beautiful face as tears poured down his cold cheeks. He held his gaze on her, unwavering, as his vision blurred.

---

"STOP!"

Buffy didn't know where the word came from, where she found the strength, but she supposed it didn't matter; all that mattered was that she had found it. Spike was gone, and so were the demons. She was alone, but it didn't bother her. She knew what she had to do. The Slayer extended an arm, wrapped her fist around a root buried deep in the earth, and began to climb.

A/N: So there you go. Chapter 13. I hope you liked it, give me some feedback and let me know! This chapter was harder than usual to write, which is odd because A) I stole a lot of it from season 6, and B) I knew what was gonna happen. Buffy's memories are from "Bargaining, Pt. 2," "After Life," "Flooded," "Smashed," "Wrecked," "Dead Things," "Once More, With Feeling," and "Seeing Red."

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far. Keep doing it!


	14. The Fight Begins

Chapter 14: The Fight Begins

The boy walked among them and fretted. He'd thrown everything he could think to throw at the Slayer, and she had withstood everything. It took him months to realize his mistake. It was ridiculous that after all his carefully executed plans, all his meticulously constructed devices, it took him all of five minutes to sit down and think about the Slayer's weakness. It had seemed so easy, so sure. There was no way she could get back up from that. He had meant for her to die, but at least she hadn't bounced back from it. Yet the threat that she might come back with a vengeance lingered over him. So here he stood, in front of Sunnydale Memorial Hospital, surrounded by denizens of the underworld who were all here for the same purpose: kill the Slayer. But he had one thing that they didn't have: a spell that would give him the chance he needed to finish what he had started, once and for all.

---

Xander scowled and paced the hall. He hated this. Hated waiting, hated not knowing what was going to happen. Any second a vamp could pop up behind him. He liked to tell himself he could handle it, that he was strong. He was even beginning to think so until Warren kicked his ass in that bar. Talk about embarrassing. Xander grunted and slapped a stake angrily against his palm.

Suddenly, a scream tore through the night air.

Xander ran down the corridor and around the bend to the main waiting area. The screamer, a nurse, was standing behind the desk, staring at the doors, too petrified to move. Xander turned his attention to the doors and sucked his breath through his teeth in horror. Dozens of demons were streaming through the glass doors. The hospital workers ran into offices, down corridors, anywhere that was away. The demons didn't bother with them; they were intent on their goal. Somehow they knew exactly where to go. The vamps can probably smell her, Xander thought as they headed in his direction. He braced himself, and signaled behind him for Dawn and Giles to wake the others. They were in for one hell of a fight.

---

Anya was having a very good, if slightly confusing, dream. Spike had wished for a world without shrimp, but for some reason Anya had accidently made it a world without bunnies. She was so happy until D'Hoffryn called her to his office to talk about the error. He fired her, but she got to stay in the world without bunnies as a human. She was just about to eat some shrimp when Dawn woke her up, saying that the vampires were coming.

Anya went to stand behind Xander, where she was joined by Giles, Dawn, Willow, and Tara. The demons hadn't seen them yet, thanks to Tara's spell. But Tara didn't know how long it would last once the fight began. Anya was armed with stakes and crosses, and when the time came she would fight. By all respects, she should be with her fellow demons. Yet here she was...was it because she wanted vengeance on Warren? She thought it was something else, something that she couldn't quite put her finger on...

_Get ready_, Giles mouthed to them as he raised his crossbow.

Anya slipped into her demon form.

---

Giles watched as his companions strung themself across the hall, effectively blocking the way to Buffy's room, just fifteen feet behind them. He admired them all so much, even Dawn, who rightfully ought to be at home in bed. Dawn and Xander had no special abilities or destinies, yet here they were, prepared to risk their life for Buffy's. It was only fair, Giles said to himself. She had risked her life nightly since she was but fifteen.

Giles suddenly realized why he had chosen the weapon he was now holding. He was proficient with the crossbow, yes, but this was not just any crossbow. It was the first crossbow he had given her: the crossbow she had used to hunt Angel after their first kiss. Angel, who was now in the room with her, serving as the last line of defense. Despite his own feelings for Angel, Giles knew that Angel would die before he let anyone harm her.

Giles pressed his finger to the trigger and watched with satisfaction as the arrow struck the first vampire in the heart. The vampire had a comically surprised look on its face as it combusted. The rest watched in confusion, then turned their predatory gazes to the Scoobies. The fight had begun.

---

Dawn and Willow stood in front of Tara, shielding her while she worked magic. The three of them were standing farther back than Xander, Giles, and Anya, who were in the middle of the fray. Dawn gripped her sword tightly in her hands. Beside her, Willow was clutching a stake in one hand, and a cross in the other.

"What's this spell gonna do?" Dawn whispered to Willow.

"It should confuse the demons, make 'em easier to kill. Now that they have no trouble seeing us, we can use the extra help," Willow whispered back. "It won't last for very long though, so we've gotta be as quick as we can."

Tara suddenly clapped a hand over Dawn's eyes as a bright flash burst around them. "Now!" the witch cried.

Dawn bit her lip and moved forward nervously while Willow did the same. Tara had quietly removed herself from the fight as she regained her composure. The demons seemed to be moving slower and with much less certainty. They stumbled occasionally, and didn't seem to be aware of Dawn until she drove her sword through them. She had killed four when something struck her from behind and she fell to the ground, dropping her sword.

"Dawn!" Willow cried.

Dawn saw that the spell was wearing off, and Willow was trying to come to her aid. But she wouldn't get there in time. There were too many demons and vampires between them. Dawn would have to get herself out of this mess. The demon that had struck her stood above her in all of its ugly glory. It had scaly, mottled brown and green hide, and its seven-feet-tall body was topped off by a strange spiky growth on its head. As it approached, swinging its blade-like arms, Dawn rolled beneath said arms in a move she had seen Buffy use countless times.

The oversized demon staggered when its arms passed through the empty air where Dawn had been. Dawn grabbed her sword as she came out of the roll and jumped to her feet with ease. She swung the sword at the unsuspecting demon's back. She didn't manage to decapitate it, but the sword went several inches into the thick neck, killing the demon. As the huge beast crashed to the floor, Dawn jerked her sword out and rejoined Willow. As they backed up to cover Tara again, Dawn noticed that Willow was staring.

"What?" she said. "You think I never watched Buffy?"

TBC

A/N: So the rest of the fight will be in the next chapter, unless I decide to draw it out even more, which is unlikely. I don't like writing fight scenes (mostly cuz I suck at it) so I try to keep them short. Anyway, you know the drill. This is the part where I beg you to review. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, you guys rock. Keep it up.


	15. The Fight Ends

Chapter 15: The Fight Ends

Willow felt utterly useless. Anya, while not an expert in combat, had her vengeance demon strength, and was fighting very well. Giles, as it turned out, was quite the fighter, and was slaying demons right and left. Xander was holding his own, with a little help from Giles, who was working with him. Even Dawn was wielding her sword with some skill. Willow could stake a few vamps, but felt completely overwhelmed by this battle. The old fear that she had nothing to offer was returning full force. She knew it wasn't true; she knew she's always been useful with computers, research, and...magic. But not with this. Never with this.

A vampire caught her off guard and shoved her against the wall. She could feel the panic rising in her throat, threatening to suffocate her. She pushed it away, but she didn't have the strength to push the vampire away. It closed the distance between them, fangs bared. Willow squeezed her eyes shut. After a few seconds, she cracked them open only to see the vampire's expression of shock. Then he was dust, and Willow breathed a sigh of relief, letting the pencil she had levitated from Dawn's backpack drop to the floor.

It worked, she said to herself. It worked.

Willow's pride began to give way to something else, something worse, as she realized that she was still in the grasp of the magic. It was just harmless (for the most part) pencil floating and she couldn't come down from it. She could almost feel the blackness spreading outward from her pupils. Willow struggled. The magic was a raging river, threatening to sweep her away.

Then someone was there, holding her, pulling her from the river.

Willow looked at Tara with wide, green eyes. Tara quickly murmured a protection spell to keep the demons away for a few minutes.

"I almost got lost," Willow cried softly.

Tara pulled Willow's head to her shoulder. "It's okay," she whispered, lovingly stroking Willow's hair. "I found you. We will always find each other. And I will be here when you need me. I will be your anchor, as you have been mine, tethering you to this plane."

Willow lifted her face and gave her lover a watery smile. Her heart was bursting with love as she turned once again to face the forces of darkness, her baby by her side.

---

Tara could feel a hammer splitting her skull open, figuratively speaking. All this magic was taking its toll on her. The spell to contact Buffy had been more challenging than she had let on, as well as being extremely disorienting. When she had withdrawn from Buffy's mind, or wherever they had been, she had felt as if she were learning to walk all over again. The spell to cloak everyone had not been difficult, but extending the spell to include Angel had been quite complicated. None of these things would have been a problem by themselves, but doing them all within a few hours had been a different story. Add to that all of the spells she had been employing in this fight, and she was magically spent, nearing the point of complete drainage.

Tara could feel Willow's deep well of power, and knew that if she asked, her lover would grant her access to it. But Tara could not ask such a thing unless it was absolutely necessary. So she would wait, and watch. She would refrain from using magic against any opponent that could not be taken care of in a more mundane fashion.

Even as Tara thought this, she began scanning the remaining demons, of which there looked to be about half a dozen, for mystical power. That was when she felt it. The traces of the spell were so black, so filthy that she nearly gagged. It was dark magic, and it was strong. And the bearer of the spell – she was certain it was not the caster – was entering Buffy's hospital room right now, unseen but not unnoticed.

Tara grabbed Willow's hand, and pulled the confused redhead along as she raced to the door that was swinging shut.

"Who opened..." Willow began, only to be cut off by Tara.

"There's someone there with black magic," Tara whispered as she pushed open the door and the two witches entered the room.

Angel jumped up from his seat by Buffy's bedside as they entered, then relaxed when he saw who it was. Tara noticed two dead demons on the floor, their limbs bent in odd angles, not to mention the thick layer of dust coating the floor.

"Willow, uh, Tara, what are you doing here?"

But Tara wasn't paying attention to Angel's words as she scanned the room. Willow kept shooting her concerned looks, but said nothing. Then Tara located it – him; now that she was so close, she could feel that he was male. But right now he was standing behind Angel, right beside Buffy's head. Alarmed, Tara squeezed Willow's hand. She did not dare say anything to Angel, for fear that spoken words would alert the intruder. She closed her eyes, and felt herself flowing into Willow.

"What are you..." Willow said in surprise.

"I need to do something," Tara whispered. "I need your strength."

She let the question hang unspoken between them. She knew Willow understood what she was asking. Willow gave her an answer in the form of a tiny nod, and Tara broadened the connection between them. She could feel Willow's strength flowing into her, and she used it to snap a protective shield around Buffy.

"Angel, behind you!" she called.

He spun around, only to find himself facing empty air. "Tara," he began hesitantly, but then he heard it. It was just a little thing: a quick intake of breath, a sound so soft that no human would have been able to detect it over the beeping of machines and the sounds of Willow and Tara breathing. But Angel was no human. Instantly, he lunged forward and shoved the invisible being to the ground. He could hear Tara murmuring in Latin behind him, but his attention was focused on the struggling form beneath him.

"_Revele," _Tara muttered. As soon as the words left her mouth, she saw the necessary words in her mind. She spoke them as fast as she could, for Angel's sake.

Abruptly, Angel found that he was no longer staring at the floor. Rather, he was face to face with a boy. He looked to be about twenty. He had a large nose and black hair that was spiked very badly. Honestly, Angel thought, what crappy kind of gel is he using? Such trivial thoughts were banished from his mind, however, when he heard the name that matched the face.

"Warren," Willow and Tara said together, their voices filled with loathing and disgust.

Warren chuckled beneath Angel. "Hi girls," he said. "Just came to finish what I..."

Angel slammed the boy's head against the floor before he could complete his sentence. He could feel the rage boiling in his veins as he repeatedly punched the boy in the face. He could tell that Angelus was reveling in this violence, but Angel could not bring himself to stop. This sick boy had almost taken her from him, from the world. Angel paused in his attack as he realized that he could feel something other than the rage in his chest; he could feel the gun pressed against the area where his dead heart rested, completely still.

The force of the gunshot was enough to throw Angel off of Warren. He lay on the ground for a few seconds, sucking in unneeded breaths as the pain washed through him. His face shifted into the demon's face and a growl emitted from his throat as he struggled to his feet. Warren spun away from Buffy to stare in slack-jawed awe at the pissed off vampire standing before him.

"Hey, whoa, man," Warren began in an attempt to placate his enraged opponent. "Sorry if I offended you or something by trying to kill the Slayer, I dunno, maybe you wanted to do it yoursel–"

"Shut up," Angel snarled as he lunged at the boy once again. He grabbed the gun even as Warren fired a shot at Angel's right leg. It grazed his shin, but Angel only grunted as he tossed the gun away and shoved the now defenseless boy against the wall. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't suck you dry right now."

"Um, maybe because I was just trying to do a service to the community, you know, by taking out the SlayER!" Warren shrieked as Angel shook him roughly by the shoulders and stuck his vampiric face so close that only an inch of air separated their noses.

"Wrong. Answer."

"Uh, well, I'm I'm bad, I'm a killer, b-but you're not," Warren stammered. He was reaching for straws and he knew it.

"Wrong again, boy. I am a killer. I was murdering children when you're great-grandparents were in diapers." Angel didn't intend to kill the boy, but Warren didn't know that. "So tell me again. Why shouldn't I–"

"Warren."

Angel felt his game face slide away as he spun around to stare at the owner of that voice. She was sitting up on the bed, with Willow standing on one side and Tara on the other. All three were looking at the boy behind Angel as she continued to speak.

"Why don't you let the cell door hit you on the ass on your way to a life sentence."

"You haven't got anything on me," Warren squealed in full-blown panic.

"You murdered Katrina and you tried to murder me. I think we'll manage," Buffy said in a voice that was deadly calm. "Angel, could you take him to the police station? I think they can handle him."

He nodded and, shoving Warren ahead of him, walked out the door. On his way out, he passed Giles, Dawn, Xander, and Anya. They stared at him and Warren as they passed.

"She's awake," was all Angel said to them. It was all he needed to say.

Her friends and sister rushed in to be with her, while Angel stepped out into the balmy night air. He would do this for her, and after making sure she was alright, he would leave. She had her friends and family. She didn't need him now.

TBC

R&R

I decided against Spike showing up. He's still in Africa.


	16. Welcome Back

Chapter 16: Welcome Back

A/N: This was supposed to be the last chapter. But then this chapter just turned into two chapters! Except that I haven't written the second one yet :P

Willow and Tara watched Buffy stare at Angel's retreating back. As soon as he was out of sight, she sank back into the bed with a sigh. Willow smiled at her friend.

"Cell door? Life sentence?" she said dubiously.

Buffy grinned at her. "Not my best, but you gotta give me points for post-coma humor."

"Welcome back," Tara said.

"You too," Buffy said softly.

"What do you mean?"

Buffy frowned. "I'm not actually sure. Maybe it's a coma thing. I just got this feeling that things could've been really different." The Slayer shrugged, deciding to chalk it up to dreamworld stress.

Willow remembered the bullet that had gone through her bedroom window and become embedded in the wall. Suddenly she thought she knew what Buffy meant. "I'll be right back," she said to Buffy and Tara as the others entered the room. As soon as she was out of the door, she ran down the hall and out of the hospital, searching the night for two particular figures.

---

Angel stopped Warren with a firm grip on his neck as the redhead ran up beside him, breathing hard.

"Willow, what is it? Is something wrong?" Angel let his real question hang unspoken, as if voicing his fears might somehow lend credence to them. _Is Buffy okay?_

"No, everything's fine, Angel," Willow said. "I just got the sudden urge to do this."

She faced Warren, who stood immobile in Angel's grasp, terrified that the vampire might snap his neck. She pulled her arm back and punched Warren on the nose. Hard. The boy gave an involuntary yelp of surprise and pain.

"Ow," Willow said, shaking her hand out. "Happy, but still...ow." She grimaced as she breathed on her reddened knuckles.

"You might want to put some ice on that," Angel said with a wide smile. He had always liked Willow. She was a true friend to Buffy, and maybe even to him. "I hear they have that sort of thing at hospitals."

She gave him a bright smile and turned to go. She took a few steps, then abruptly turned around and returned to a surprised Angel.

"Angel, where are you going? After the police station, that is."

Angel shifted uncomfortably. "Back to LA," he told her tersely.

"You, uh, you don't have to go, you know," Willow said nervously. "Right now. I mean, the sun will be up soon. Maybe it would be better if you just stayed here. For today. Giles has the couch, but there's a cot in the basement you can sleep on, or you could stay in Xander's apartment ..." Willow trailed off at the look on Angel's face. "Or not Xander's apartment. I'm just saying, you don't have to go."

Angel was silent for a moment, then he nodded slowly. "Thanks. I'll just take him to the police station, then go back to the house."

Angel didn't know what to think as they went their separate ways, except that this was sure to be an interesting day.

---

"Buffy!" Dawn screeched as she threw herself at her sister.

Buffy laughed. "Hey Dawnie," she said as she wrapped her arms around the teenager.

"Um, Buffy?" Dawn said after a few seconds. "Air?"

"Oh! Sorry." Buffy hurriedly let the now slightly frazzled Dawn go. Dawn stepped back from the bed, and Xander resumed her place, hugging Buffy.

"Stop trying to die on us, Buff," he half-joked.

She grinned at him. "It's good to see you too, Xand. And you know, it wasn't exactly a plan..." She trailed off as she spotted someone behind Xander. "Giles!"

"Hello, Buffy," the Brit said with a soft smile. "I came as soon as I heard. I'm gone for a few months, and all hell breaks loose." He looked down before meeting her gaze once more. "Can you ever forgive me?"

"For what?"

"I should never have left."

Buffy smiled a little. "No, you were right to leave. We're just stupid."

"I know you're all stupid," Giles said, ignoring Xander's protests. "I should never have abandoned you."

"No, Giles, you were right about everything. It's time I was an adult."

"Sometimes the most adult thing you can do is ask for help when you need it."

Buffy glared at him. "Now you tell me?"

"Hi Buffy!" Anya said, leaning around Giles. Buffy was beginning to feel a little bit claustrophobic.

"Hi Anya."

"I'm glad you're not dead."

"Um, thanks. So, what did I miss?" Buffy glanced at the others expectantly.

"Oh, just some fighting and killing," Dawn supplied.

Buffy raised her eyebrows. "I missed the killing? Damn, what else did I miss?"

"Not much," Xander said. "Just your typical Sunnydale week. Anya's a demon. Spike's gone."

"Spike's gone?" Buffy said softly, her face expressionless. Xander just nodded. Buffy shrugged. "Okay. So when can I get out of here?"

"Well," Giles began, "I'm sure it would be best if you were to remain here for a spell..."

"Let me rephrase that," Buffy interrupted. "Let's get out of here."

TBC

A/N: So some of that Buffy/Giles dialogue is from Grave, which I didn't write, don't own, etc. Anyway, the next chapter really is gonna be the last chapter. Except for the short alternate ending that I'm going to write after that. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far, you guys rock. You know the drill...read and REVIEW!

samsarah: I've got nothing against Spike. I love the character. I just think that the idea of a serious BS relationship during season 6 is ridiculous. So I guess soulless Spike (or the memories of him) is a bad guy in this fic. As for the ending, well, read and find out.


	17. Back to Life

Chapter 17: Back To Life

I can't believe I'm doing this, Angel thought to himself as he climbed the tree outside Buffy's bedroom window. He had done this more times than he could count when he had lived in Sunnydale. The nostalgia of it all was overwhelming as he crawled through her open window. His mind carried him back to a happier, simpler time in which they had shared kisses through the open window. She had been so young, and they had both been so blissfully naive, thinking that they could make it work. They had failed, and now Angel felt very out of place in her bedroom. Well, it had been this or break and enter, he reminded himself as he made his way downstairs to wait for the others.

Angel sat on the couch for what seemed like an eternity, and he knew from eternity. He was just beginning to seriously consider a quick sweep of the cemeteries when voices outside broke him out of his reverie.

"Xander, I'm tired, not disabled," Buffy grumbled.

"Relax Buff, I won't tell any of your friends about you leaning on my shoulder all the way here. Oh wait, they all saw it!"

Angel distinctly heard the sound of a punch.

"Ow," Xander said. "There's no reason to get so violent. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes you need a big, strong man to lean on."

Angel felt a growl rising from his chest. His was the shoulder she ought to be leaning on. He would give anything to have the place in her life that Xander did. But that could never happen. They both had responsibilities to the world that couldn't and shouldn't be cast aside for selfish reasons. Even as he thought this, Angel was rushing to open the door and let her lean on his shoulder.

Everyone fell silent as Angel and Buffy came face to face. Angel felt slightly gratified to see that she was no longer leaning on Xander's shoulder. She had switched to leaning on Dawn, who glared at him when he opened the door.

"Hi," Buffy said.

Angel opened his mouth. He should say something. "Hi," he managed.

"Dead Boy, you're blocking the door," Xander said loudly in the ensuing silence.

Angel hastily moved aside so that Dawn and Buffy could struggle through the door, with a protective Xander hovering by the Slayer's side.

"Well this is awkward," Anya muttered as she passed Angel in the doorway.

"Hi Angel," Willow said kindly as she walked through, supporting her exhausted girlfriend. "I'll make you up a bed."

"You can't have the couch," Giles said indignantly from behind the witches. "The couch is mine."

Angel watched in disbelief as the gang trooped into the living room and arranged themselves in various positions on the couch, chairs, or floor as if it were any other night. I shouldn't be so surprised, he thought to himself as he followed them and leaned uncomfortably against the wall. It's not like I haven't seen them do this sort of thing before. Buffy's words from years ago came to mind. _We saved the world. I say we party._

Angel continued to watch as an outsider as the group of friends chattered away about the goings-on of the last few tumultuous days. Finally, Anya announced that she was tired of them, and was going on. Xander, in a rare moment of something that resembled chivalry, offered to drive her home. Anya, in a rare moment of sensibility, acknowledged that a ride would be nice at this hour. After their departure, the group began to disperse. Giles shooed them out of the living room, which he referred to as his temporary lodging. Tara made her way upstairs to her bedroom. Dawn and Buffy disappeared into the kitchen.

"Faith never mentioned the weird side-effects of a coma," Angel heard Buffy say to Dawn as the sisters left the room.

"Side-effects? Like what?"

"Oh, well, I'm starving for one. Hungry and horny, as she would say. I'm seriously craving some low-fat yogurt."

"Horny?"

"Well...forget I said that. But Faith was all with the 'five by five,' whatever that means..."

Angel blinked in a mixture of confusion and amusement. Buffy had woken from a coma not two hours ago, and here she was joking with her sister as if this sort of thing happened everyday. He didn't care if this was a hellmouth; the past events were not normal, or whatever passed for normal here. He snorted. She never ceased to amaze him.

"Uh, Angel?"

The vampire shifted his attention from the Summers sisters to the redhead standing before him.

"Yes?"

"I was just gonna help you get set up in the basement," Willow said with a bit of uncertainty in her voice. She could tell that he was reluctant to divert his attention from a certain blonde who was currently consuming mass amounts of yogurt in the kitchen.

"Oh, uh, right. I mean, thanks," he said haltingly.

Angel followed Willow as she moved to the closet. She passed him sheets, a blanket, and a pillow, then walked down into the basement, the vampire right behind her, unintentionally doing a fair imitation of a packmule. Angel's eyes roved over the barely furnished basement that he had not set foot in for years. Even with his night vision, he couldn't make out much. When Willow flicked on the lights, he realized that this was not because his exhausted senses were failing, but rather because there really wasn't much to see.

Angel stood by as Willow unfolded a cot against the wall and began spreading a sheet over it. It really didn't look very comfortable, but Angel didn't mind. He had had worse, as he told Willow when she anxiously said that it probably wasn't very comfortable.

"Really Willow, it's okay. Vampire here. I think I can handle one night on a cot, and...are those chains?"

Willow followed his gaze to the box in the corner of the room. "Uh, apparently," she said in a strange voice. "And on that note, sleep tight!"

Long after Willow had left him alone in the dark basement, Angel lay awake on the thin cot. He couldn't stop thinking about Buffy, as per usual. One might go so far as to say he was brooding. She was safe now, or as safe as someone in her line of work would ever be. There was no reason for him to stay. But he couldn't put to rest the overwhelming urge to hold her in his arms. He had come so close to losing her. It didn't matter that they were no longer together. He needed the strength that came from knowing she was just a phone call away. Finally, Angel made up his mind. He needed to see her, talk to her, hold her. He was just starting up the steps when the door above him opened wide.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," he replied, unsure how to say all the things he needed to say.

"Angel, I, um, thought we could talk," she said as she joined him at the bottom of the steps.

"Sure," he breathed.

She was so close to him. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch her. Instead, he walked to the cot and sat at the head of his makeshift bed. Buffy gingerly sat down on at the foot, leaning back against the wall with a barely audible sigh. They sat in silence for several long moments, neither sure how to begin.

"Thank you," Buffy said softly, breaking the silence. "Thank you for coming."

Angel looked at her with faint surprise. "Of course I came." A half-smile began to form on his lips. "It's the unwritten rule: I'll come when you need me."

Buffy's met his for a brief instant. She looked down at her hands in her lap, as if they could tell her how to respond. "This is stupid," she muttered with clear exasperation.

Angel couldn't help feeling faintly hurt at her comment. "If you don't want me to be here," he began hesitantly. Please don't tell me to go, he silently pleaded. I would go, but it would break my cold, dead heart.

"God, Angel, how can you even think that?" she said loudly. "Of course I want you to be here; I never wanted you to go!" They were both silent for several seconds after her outburst. With a deep breath, she opened her mouth and continued in a softer voice. "I understand why you left, a-and I'm not angry, even though I think your reasons were stupid. Come on. Leaving so I can have a normal life? Like that would ever happen! As for the soul problem, sure it's annoying, but it's not the end of the world. But...even though I don't agree with those reasons, there are two other reasons. There's the part where you're immortal and I'm not. But really, that's your issue because you're the one who's gonna have to deal with my death." He started to speak, but she raised her hand to silence him as she continued to speak. "But now there's another reason. And that's that we both have responsibilities to our friends and our jobs. The people in LA need your protection, and the people in Sunnydale need mine. But just because we can't move in with each other is no reason to give up! So, despite all the potential problems, this thing we have...it's stupid. Stupid that we can only see each other in emergencies."

"Buffy, if you ever need anything at all, you know you can call me," Angel said quietly.

"But that's just it! What if I don't need anything? What if I just want to hear your voice? What would happen if I called then? You would ask me what was wrong and start freaking and...and..."

"You don't know that," Angel said, using her need to breath as an opportunity to disrupt her rant. "You were afraid of how I would react so you never even tried?"

"Hey, I never said it made sense," she said dryly. "These things aren't supposed to. I just...I hate not knowing what's going on in your life. Sure, I'll come if you call for me. But what if you don't call? What if you're dying and you can't call for help and I'm just sitting here in Sunnydale playing with a yo-yo on the steps of Alpert's crypt! And that's not even the main problem! Plenty of exes keep in touch after they break up!" She faltered for a second. "Well, I'm sure some of them do the whole 'let's still be friends' thing. And I know that we've tried being just friends and it didn't work, but that doesn't mean we have to be strangers!"

"A yo-yo?" was all Angel could say.

She shrugged. "So not the point."

Angel was silent, thinking about what she had said. "What are you proposing?"

"I'm not really sure," she admitted. "But I want more than this. Even if all we do is call each other every couple of weeks, it'll be better than nothing. Plus, it makes sense on the whole Slaying perspective to share information on the baddies and all that."

Angel looked at her with never-ending wonder. "I'd like that," he said with a soft smile that grew wider when she smiled back.

She was so beautiful, even with only thin light from the single window illuminating her hair and eyes. Angel just sat there, drinking in the sight of her. Suddenly, she darted forward and captured his lips in a sweet kiss. When she broke away for oxygen, she just looked into his eyes for a long moment, then moved so that she was sitting right beside him, leaning into his shoulder. Gently, he wrapped his arms around her small form and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. He longed so much to see her in the sunlight. And he prayed that one day he would get the chance to. But he said none of this, afraid to shatter the tremulous contentment between them. They stayed that way until the first rays of dawn began to invade the shadowed basement.

"I should go," Buffy whispered. "I have to go get Dawnie off to school."

He nodded his acceptance as they broke apart.

"You should get some sleep," Buffy said with a small smile as she stood. "I'm sure Cordy and Wes will have plenty of work waiting for you tonight."

Angel felt his smile fade as she left the room. _Cordy and Wes..._ Buffy couldn't know about everything that had happened between them, and he had no one to blame for that but himself. Wesley's betrayal, although almost understandable, still hurt more than Angel liked to think about. And Cordy...how would she react to the renewed contact between him and Buffy? Angel sighed. She would deal. And it wasn't as if Buffy were moving in with him. It was just a few more phone calls than usual. It didn't mean that much. No, Angel said to himself, that's not true. Maybe it wouldn't mean very much to their friends, but it meant the world to him. So when Angel finally lay down to sleep it was with a broad smile on his face.

---

"Hey Awake Girl," Dawn chirped as she breezed into the kitchen and gave her sister a quick kiss on the cheek, eliciting the smallest smile she had ever seen. Dawn frowned. "Are you okay?"

Buffy shrugged and handed Dawn a box of cereal. "Just tired is all."

"I thought coma's were supposed to make you feel all rested and rejuvenated," Dawn said as she took the cereal and grabbed a bowl from the cupboard. "Isn't that what Faith said?"

Buffy raised her eyebrows at her younger sister. "Funny story about Faith: she went evil and lied a lot."

Dawn just rolled her eyes in mock annoyance as she retrieved the milk carton from the refrigerator. "Yeah well, if you're so tired why aren't you asleep?"

Two pieces of toast popped up out of the toaster, and Buffy hurriedly put them on a plate and handed them to Dawn, scowling slightly at the blackened bits. "I will sleep."

Dawn stared at her sister incredulously as she grasped the plate of toast. "You mean you haven't slept yet?"

"Not really. I lay awake for awhile and then I, uh, went to talk to Angel about some stuff."

Dawn's eyes widened and she almost dropped the plate. "Oops," she muttered as she set it down on the island. "So spill! What did you talk about?"

Buffy leaned back against the counter and looked at her hands before answering. "We're going to keep in touch."

If possible, Dawn's eyes widened even more. "Buffy, that's great! This must just mean everything for you!"

Buffy gasped involuntarily as she heard his voice whispering in her ear, _"You're my everything." _She didn't remember him saying it, but somehow she knew he had said it and it was true. She felt a lump forming in her throat and tears forming in her eyes. "Yeah," she murmured softly, "everything."

"I'm so happy for you!" Dawn cried. "You're here, you're back, a-and, you can finally get back to your life! You won't have to worry about Warren anymore, and you've pretty much put the fear of Buffy into the Sunnydale vamps what with the not dying and everything!"

Dawn's felt her excitement drain out of her as she noticed the tears slipping from the corners of her suddenly silent sister's eyes. "Sorry to disappoint you," she muttered angrily. Suddenly, she straightened and looked at Buffy again. "Wait, is that happy crying?"

Buffy looked up at her through the tears. "Yes, dummy! You think I wanted to die?"

Dawn shifted uncomfortably and folded her arms in front of her chest. "I don't know. Didn't you?"

Buffy stared at the girl with horror written all over her tear-streaked face. "Dawn...I'm so sorry." She quickly covered the short distance between the two of them and wrapped her arms around the younger girl. "I'm sorry," she cried softly into Dawn's long brown hair.

Dawn, unsure how to react to this turn of events, began to rub slow circles on her sister's back. "It's okay, Buffy," she whispered soothingly. "It's okay."

"No," Buffy protested through her sobs, "it hasn't been. It hasn't been okay." The Slayer pulled back from the embrace to meet Dawn's eyes firmly. "But it's gonna be, though. I see it."

"See what?" Dawn said with confusion.

"You," Buffy replied with a beatific smile. "Things have really sucked lately, but it's all gonna change. And I wanna be there when it does. I want to see my friends happy again. And I want to see you grow up. The woman you're gonna become. Because she's gonna be beautiful. And she's going to be powerful." Buffy turned away from Dawn and looked out the window to her backyard where she had been shot just a few days ago. "I got it so wrong. I don't want to protect you from the world. I want to show it to you." Buffy turned back to Dawn with barely concealed excitement. "There's so much that I want to show you!"

Dawn opened her mouth to say something, but found that she had nothing to say. Instead, she wrapped her sister in a firm embrace. The siblings sank to the kitchen floor, holding each other and crying euphorically.

In the hall, Willow turned away from the spectacle to regard her lover with an exuberant smile. "I feel kinda bad about eavesdropping, but I just love happy endings."

Tara looked at Willow with a strange expression on her face. "This isn't the end," she asserted. "Far from it. We've all got a long, hard journey ahead of us." The blond witch cupped Willow's cheek and gazed deeply into her soulmate's green eyes. "And I wouldn't miss it for the world."

The End.

That's right. The end. Sort of. I'm going to write a brief alternate ending as soon as I get the chance, but life's been really crazy lately so I'm not sure how long it'll take. This chapter took much longer than usual to write. This is my longest chapter yet, and I really wanted to get the ending right...so review and let me know if you think I did a good job! Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed so far, you guys rock. A large part of Buffy and Dawn's conversation is from "Grave," which I didn't write, don't own, etc. Oh, and Angel remembers one of Buffy's lines from "Prophecy Girl." I also rewrote a large part of Angel's monologue in Chapter 13, so please check it out.

TTFN


	18. Alternate Ending

Alternate Ending

This begins right after the end of chapter 12 (Lost). Angel is sitting by Buffy's hospital bed. Willow has just left the room.

Angel began to get annoyed as he was interrupted once again.

"Um, Anya, right?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yeah," she replied. "We met twice. With the vampire Willow, and then at the Prom."

"Right," he said, "the Prom. You went with Xander?"

Angel noticed an abrupt change in her demeanor at the mention of Xander, but he did not pay much attention. He could not help remembering his and Buffy's last dance.

"Yeah, I went with Xander. Sometimes I wish I hadn't. Things might've been so different." She was silent for a moment, gazing down at Buffy's prone form. Then she turned her head to regard Angel, who was still staring at the sleeping Slayer. "Do you ever wish things were different?"

"Always," he replied without taking his eyes off Buffy. "I always wish things were different." Anya frowned slightly, but Angel missed it as he continued to speak. "Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd never come into her life, but I don't have the heart to wish that, and I like to think that she wouldn't either. I always wonder what would've happened if I'd stayed. Would she..." Angel trailed off, unwilling to complete the thought.

"What about Warren?" Anya said. "He doesn't deserve to live, let alone get away with this."

"He won't," Angel said. "I won't let him. But vengeance doesn't change the past. She'd still be...God, if only I'd known, if only I could've been..." Angel sighed and took a deep breath before uttering these fateful words. "I just wish I was there to stop this."

"Done," Anya announced proudly, realization striking an instant too late.

Angel blinked at the sudden change in Anya's voice. When he opened his eyes, he was greeted by a sight that he had not been expecting. Two beautiful green eyes were staring into his own brown ones with shock.

"Angel?"

God, how he loved the way she said his name...

"Angel, oh my god, what the hell are you..."

She looked so beautiful, so radiantly alive in the sunlight. Angel gulped. Sunlight.

"Oh, sh–"

The last thing he saw was her horrified expression as flames consumed his body, and a boy he did not recognize emerged from the bushes. Then Angelus, the Scourge of Europe, and Angel, the vampire with a soul, were gone.

The End

A/N: How's that for an ending? Before I had decided on an ending for this story, I thought about what would've happened if Anya had gone through with her plan to get a wish out of Angel. And this is the result. Maybe she'll reverse the wish, or maybe not. We'll never know...or will we? I have actually considered a sequel to this fic (probably just the other ending, but maybe this one too), but I'm not sure how it would work yet, and I've come to the conclusion that some of my ideas for it are just plain crazy. But we'll see. Many thanks to everyone who has reviewed this fic; I've said it before and I'm about to say it again: you guys rock. I'd mention you by name, but I'm told I'm not allowed to do that anymore. But I'm still asking people to REVIEW and tell me if you thought this ending was funny, insane, or whatever. Anyway, I have now completed my first fanfic ever, and if all goes according to plan, it will not be my last.

TTFN


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